


Heart

by Molly



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Case Fic, Friendship, Gen, ep-related:TS.107.Rogue, gen - Freeform, sentinel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-21
Updated: 2008-09-21
Packaged: 2017-10-02 00:45:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 57,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly/pseuds/Molly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>In which the Major Crime department raises bickering to an art form, and events of a dire nature are visited upon just about everybody. Kind of my tribute to Lee Brackett, who does not, in fact, appear in this story at all.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart

**Author's Note:**

> For the squeamish: Contains graphic descriptions of crime scenes, and descriptions of wounds from recent violence.

"Simon." Jim poked his head into the office without knocking. "Can I see you for a minute?"

Not waiting for an answer, he twisted through the door and shut it firmly behind him. He figured he had about three minutes before Blair showed up; he'd been tracking the hello's and howzithangin's since the Volvo pulled into the garage.

"Sure," Simon said. "Please, do come in. "

"Sorry." Jim glanced back and smiled in a way he hoped conveyed a reasonable attempt at remorse. "Sandburg's on his way up, and I don't want him to know I'm here."

He turned away from the glare Simon generally employed to disguise curiosity and back to the window that looked out into the bullpen. He closed the blinds, then separated two of the flimsy plastic slats with a finger and focused his vision through the small crack. He took in the empty sets of paired desks and the coatless coat rack; it was the perfect time of day. Most of the detectives in Major Crimes were out in the field, leaving the room quiet and still. It made observation easier and harder at the same time -- less interference, but not quite so easy to hide.

Jim didn't like sneaking around, spying on Blair. It made him feel mean, which he wasn't used to, and it made a spot right between his shoulder blades itch. Somehow, the general benevolence of his intentions couldn't quite convince him Blair would approve.

_"Burton never mentioned sentinels were genetically predisposed toward guilt,"_ Blair had snapped once in a fit of irritation, and Jim had given up a grin. He didn't know about sentinels, but Ellisons certainly were. The thin white envelope in his hands felt like solid evidence of a betrayal. His fingers tightened on it involuntarily, almost tearing it, and he forced himself to relax and smooth the crisp paper.

It was for a good cause.

Blair hadn't moved into Jim's apartment so much as he'd terraformed it. By the time Jim finally got a chance to breathe and look around, the squirrelly little guy with the hair and the attitude had put down roots so deep only extensive blasting could have removed him. He had a name and a background and a room right next to the kitchen. Jim was surprised to discover he didn't really mind; the tests and the lab and the new-age patter had imposed a kind of order on his life and his senses. A weird kind of jazzed-up flower-child kind of order, but order all the same, and that was certainly worth the price of a room. After a while, he had to admit just having Blair around was worth the price of a room. Jim couldn't have found a better friend if he'd printed flyers and held auditions.

He'd kept track of Blair pretty closely even before Incacha's death, but afterwards, things had gotten a little out of hand. Incacha had promoted Blair from observer and ride-along to shaman and spiritual guide with his final breath, and though everything he'd ever believed cried out against it, Jim knew that had to mean something. The Chopec took the spirit world very seriously, and Blair had just been put in charge of it -- at least insofar as it impacted on Jim or Cascade.

Sentinel senses or none, Jim's hindsight beat his foresight all to hell. He missed everything the first time through, but on review he could paint it by the numbers. He needed only to look back as far as the Golden incident to see the rough outline of a pattern that had been forming from the start. That, combined with Blair's headaches, set Incacha's words into a strange and not terribly comfortable context.

Blair's visions while under the influence of Golden bore more than a coincidental resemblance to Jim's own Golden nightmares. Even the name Jim had given them in the privacy of his own mind -- the lightning-spike, whip-thin figures that wandered through his inner sight while he was blinded -- was the same.

Golden Fire People.

Jim's demons. Jim's nightmare. Blair had somehow shared it, and that sharing had nearly cost him his life -- and then Incacha's unexpected legacy had upped the ante even more.

If Jim was going to believe in the panther -- and he had to, because if it didn't exist, he was very probably insane -- he had to also believe in Incacha, in Incacha's powers, and in the very real possibility that those powers had been passed on to Blair Sandburg, B.A., M.A., someday Ph.D.

Who'd been a pretty weird guy even before he'd been made Shaman of a Great City.

"Is there some reason you can't stare at the floor in your own office?"

Jim shook himself out of the moment of introspection and found Simon looking less pleased with each passing second. "I don't have an office."

"If I give you one," Simon said, "will you go to it and leave me alone? And since when does my best detective hide from unarmed anthropologists?"

"I'm not hiding." Jim kept his tone even with difficulty. "I'm stalking."

"I have a really strong feeling that I don't want to be involved with this, Jim. Whatever he did this time, whatever you're planning to do, I don't want to be a witness. The less I can testify to, the better."

"This is serious, Simon." Jim shifted, shoulders hunched uncomfortably, as he tried to find a way to explain. "Something's going on with Blair."

Simon's eyebrows drew together. "You think he's in some kind of trouble?"

"No, no. It's nothing like that." Jim had to kill a smile at the worried tone in Simon's voice. On several occasions, Jim had caught Simon watching Blair with a distinctly paternal light in his eyes. It was reassuring. Blair sometimes needed more oppressive hovering than one man could provide. "Just come over here and watch."

With the sigh of a man who suffered much for the sake of friendship, Simon pushed aside the small avalanche of papers he'd been sorting and joined the stakeout. "What am I looking for?"

"Has Brown been in to talk to you?"

"I'm not tracking this conversation very well, Jim, and it's starting to piss me off."

"Just bear with me. Brown came to me yesterday and asked to be taken off the task force."

Simon's expression darkened instantly, and his voice went hard with authority. "Jim, we can't spare him. You know -- and he knows -- that we need all hands on this case until we bring that bastard in."

"Which I told him, thanks, I know how to run a task force. Anyway, it's academic. Brown's not leaving."

Blair would see to that. With a serial killer running roughshod through their territory and the press playing him up as Cascade's answer to Freddy Krueger, they needed everybody with a pulse. To Simon Banks, all hands meant all hands, and these days that included Blair. So far, Jim had managed to keep Blair on the fringes of the investigation, taking him along only when it was absolutely necessary. There were some things the kid just didn't need to see.

Keeping Brown on the task force meant keeping Blair off it for a little while longer. Jim wasn't above letting Blair do his work for him.

He checked the bullpen again. Blair would be walking in any second. "I gave him a day to reconsider, but I don't think it's going to be a problem. If I'm right, Blair's going to take care of this one for us." The sealed envelope he'd been abusing was crinkled, worse for wear, but still intact. Jim held it out to Simon, releasing a pent-up breath. "Don't open this until I tell you to."

Simon took it from him, never losing eye contact. Jim could almost see him backing away from his anger over the string of murders, his mind moving on to the next priority with the ease of long practice. It was something cops learned early on if they wanted to stay cops.

"I hope this isn't a bribe," Simon said finally, dredging up a tired smile.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Blair liked going in to the station when Jim wasn't there. At first, he'd been intimidated by the weird looks he got and the snide comments about his hair, but neither had lasted past the first few days. In fact, most of them had stopped right after he'd proven himself useful during the takeover of the station, his first day as a Civilian Observer. Taking down a bad guy in the line of duty made you real popular with cops; taking him down with a vending machine made you a legend. Even Jim had told him he'd done a good job that day, and Jim didn't hand out praise for every little thing. If you didn't lose a limb, you didn't rate more than a grunt from Jim Ellison.

Nobody really needed to know the vending machine thing had been the result of a moment of pure panic. Well, okay, Jim probably knew, but he'd never said anything. The one time Blair had kind of hinted about it to Joel, Joel had kind of hinted back that keeping it to himself wouldn't be a bad idea, and that was that. Blair knew a lot about people, but precious little about cops; he was more than willing to defer to Taggart's wisdom, especially when Jim wasn't offering any.

And anyway, he liked the respect. It was one thing to get that from his colleagues and students at the University; Blair was an kick-ass student himself and an even better teacher. But to get it from these guys, who put their lives on the line for people just like him and who didn't have to give him the time of day if they didn't want to -- that was something completely different.

Of course, a lot of that came from being Jim's partner. People just didn't mess with Jim Ellison. They didn't do it, didn't think about it, didn't even dream about it. It just wasn't done.

And you didn't mess with his shaman, either. In the absence of an audience, Blair smirked at the ceiling. Jim hadn't said anything about the change in status, but his "hover factor" had increased considerably. There were times Blair half-expected to find Jim standing sentry outside his bedroom doors in the mornings. His safety was getting to be kind of an obsession with Jim. Those who didn't understand that generally found out the hard way. Blair didn't approve of violence in general, but he'd discovered he had no complaints when it was applied in defense of Civilian Observers, and besides, Jim was really good at it. He certainly couldn't begrudge the man use of a major skill.

The elevator pinged softly, a sound Blair had recently discovered he deeply liked. Having failed to hear it once and been immediately thereafter dropped several floors and almost blown up, he found himself listening for it rather closely now. Of course, that hadn't been at the PD, but elevators had become something of an adventure for him ever since. For a while he'd considered switching to stairs exclusively, but Major Crimes was on the seventh floor and even fear wasn't that great a motivator.

Only a sentinel could have known how freaked out he got riding up, and the only sentinel he knew was at home, hopefully putting together something for dinner since Blair had forgotten it was his turn. All afternoon he'd had a feeling he'd left something important at the station, though he couldn't remember quite what it was. It was sure to be vital, and he didn't relish the thought of driving back for it after dark in the Corvair. Easy enough to stop off on the way home, and if something gave out in his battered ride, at least he'd be hitching in broad daylight.

The bullpen was practically deserted, which was a little disappointing. Brown was there, and Taggart, but both seemed pretty absorbed in their paperwork. He liked sitting around with the detectives, talking about the cases on the board, finding out what was going on. It made him feel like an insider, like he really belonged there. The guys went out of their way to let him in, too. Some closed society. That made for two dissertation topics severely warped by reality.

He stopped at Jim's desk. The feeling he'd forgotten something was stronger, a constant itch inside his brain. A quick search of the drawers turned up nothing but a library book he'd left the day before and his laser-pointer, neither of which were of any immediate importance. Blair ran a hand through his hair, staring wide-eyed and unseeing at the papers scattered over the desktop. He frowned through a mental list of the things he usually brought with him, checking each item off; there wasn't a thing he needed that wasn't in his backpack.

The feeling didn't go away. If anything, it got worse.

After a moment he looked up, brow furrowed. His eyes scanned over Taggart, past Simon's closed door, and finally lit on Brown.

The itch in his head vanished.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


"Here it comes." Jim watched Blair cross the room and take a seat on the edge of Brown's desk. Jim could've listened in if he'd wanted to, but it wouldn't serve any purpose, and he already felt like a rat for invading Blair's privacy. Besides, it didn't really matter what got said. It was the results that formed the pattern.

"I hope this is worth it, Jim," Simon said with the voice of Jim's conscience. "I don't feel right, watching him like this."

"It's not the friendliest thing I've ever done, either, Simon. Just wait for it. Five minutes, maybe less, and you'll have all the answers you need."

"He's not doing anything he doesn't do every time he comes in."

Jim nodded. "Exactly. And if the result is the same, and matches what I predicted and sealed in that envelope you're holding, we're going to have a lot to talk about."

"This is something I'm not going to like."

"Forgone conclusion, Simon." Jim grinned. His sympathy for people who didn't have to live with Blair was extremely limited. "This is Sandburg we're talking about, remember?"

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


"Hey, Hairboy. I didn't see you come in."

Brown had been calling him that from day one, and there was some question whether the man even knew Blair's name. "You were pretty into the paperwork. Somebody's going to think you like that stuff if you don't watch it, man."

Blair sat on the edge of Brown's desk, feet swinging in space, and watched him carefully. A flash of...what? Shame? That, or something very like it, passed through Brown's eyes. Up close, Blair could see it wasn't the paperwork eating Brown's attention. It was a picture frame -- actually the back of one. Wallet-sized, with brown felt over the backing.

"I'm a crime-fighting machine." Brown laughed in a way Blair didn't like. "Beats the alternative, huh?"

"You mean the case." There was no need to expand on it. These days, in this department, there was only one case and everybody was on it. "You didn't go out today?"

"I don't want to talk about it," he said.

Blair moved off the desk. Brown watched him like he was a really boring rerun -- eyes out of focus, face slack and empty. A sense of purpose grew in Blair, a need to talk, to get this right. Talking to people was his strong suit, his major skill.

Energy thrummed inside him, and Blair held it in as long as he could. He was used to this; it worked better if he got really psyched. He took a few deep breaths, concentrating on the way the air felt as it moved in and out of his lungs, closing himself off from his senses and letting his mind still.

When he spoke, seconds later, he sounded different. His voice was deeper; it felt different in his throat. The tone was right on target. Words slid into his mind like thin cold wires, and somewhere behind his eyes a patient, slow ache moved in and started to decorate.

"I'm not gonna push it."

Brown laid down his pen. A tired hand passed over his face, scrubbing at red eyes. "It's too much," he said. "Too fucking much."

One girl a month for the past four; damn straight it was too much. Blair didn't have to see the snapshots to grasp the before and after: beautiful girls made a lot less than beautiful, beat up and cut up and set up like performance art. Jim didn't want Blair near the case, nobody did, but closed or not, cops were still a society. Things slipped by. The quiet, vicious hate in Brown's voice wasn't Blair's first clue to just how fucked up the world could be.

Still, it was different. It wasn't like the low-grade anger all the other detectives had been carrying around with them; it was a paradox, both deeper and closer to the surface than that, more personal. The difference worked like a signpost. It showed Blair where to go.

"Sounds like you're too close. Is there something I don't know? Something that won't let you back away?"

For an answer, Brown turned the picture frame in his hands around.

She was around sixteen, cute in a jailbait kind of way. Nothing you'd find on the cover of Ebony, but she wouldn't have to sit home on Saturday nights. She looked enough like Brown to be his twin, if Brown were prettier and a lot less close to forty.

If Blair had a sister that age, he'd pack her up in a duffel bag and head for someplace safe. Zaire, maybe, or Sudan. Nothing like a psychopath on the loose to make deadly viruses and tribal warfare seem tame, and anyway, it wasn't like you could avoid those dangers in Cascade these days. The place was like a Mecca of psychosis.

No wonder Brown looked like he was bleeding from the eyeballs; he probably hadn't had a good night's sleep in weeks. You wear a badge, you don't get to run away.

"I guess she's pretty scared."

Brown's head came up so fast, Blair thought he heard it crack. "Yeah." He frowned. "I guess so. I haven't really talked to her about it. I'm freaked enough for both of us."

"It's gotta be kind of traumatic, doesn't it? Having somebody out there picking your friends off one by one?" Blair hunched his shoulders and shoved his hands into his pockets. It didn't make them any warmer, and it didn't kill the urge to look behind him. "Gives me the shakes just thinking about it."

"So, what, I'm supposed to go pat her hand and tell her it's all gonna be okay? Bro's gonna take care of you, sweetie? Shit. I can't even look at her, man."

"What, I look like Alex Trebek? I'm not the answer-man, H. I'd have to know her, know what she can handle. If it were me, I think I'd be relieved just to know somebody I trusted was on the case, you know? That's got to go a long way toward making her feel safe."

"Except her big brother has been on the case for weeks and gotten exactly nowhere."

Blair leaned over the desk and braced his hands far apart. "One thing Jim has drilled into me: you never know when a break will come. All you can do is be ready. That's the important thing, isn't it? That somebody's out there trying? Without people like you, people like me couldn't sleep nights."

"There aren't any people like you," Brown said. And like Blair knew he would, Brown smiled for the first time since they'd started talking. He looked at Blair, and Blair looked back, focused and clear. The pain in his head was worse, but he put a smile on for Brown and watched as something drained out of him. Something sharp and hurtful -- dark, in a way Blair could feel, but couldn't see.

"It's just a matter of trust, man. Not as in trusting somebody to fix things, more like trusting somebody to try. You guys take it personally when somebody steals a radio within city limits; that is so not fair. You can't be everywhere. Being somewhere is enough. It's like...arrogance, to expect more of yourself than that, like thinking you're superhuman."

Brown nodded slowly, eyes focused inward. Relaxing, letting go of some of the guilt. All the good ones carried it, and Blair hated the way it ate away at them, even though he could sometimes appreciate its motivational effect. Brown just had too much of it, all focused around his sister and getting stronger every day. Letting go was good for him, necessary if he was going to keep functioning.

When Brown looked up, there was a calm in his eyes that hadn't been there before. "Thanks, Blair," he said, and his smile got a little stronger.

Huh. The man knew his name after all.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Simon turned to Jim as Blair left the bullpen. He didn't look impressed. "Is that it?"

"Not yet."

Simon started to say something, but stopped when a knock sounded at the door. "Come in."

Brown stuck his head in. "Captain." He nodded at Simon. Then: "Jim, I may need to go back to the Daily's place tomorrow. I've got a few more questions lined up, and I want to ask while the answers are fresh."

"You sure?"

Brown nodded, answering the silent question. "Yeah."

"I'll set it up, then. Take Rafe with you. He's been looking kind of sad and lonely without his partner."

"Thanks, Jim." Brown grinned and touched his forehead in a fake salute. "Later, Simon." The door closed quietly behind him.

Final confirmation. Not that there'd been any doubt. Jim settled into his chair, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. "Open it," he said. "Day's not getting any shorter."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Simon scanned the notes quickly, pretty sure he wasn't going to find anything unexpected. Jim's angular handwriting covered the page, hard to read in places, but never quite crossing over into impossible. It was all there: the unscheduled arrival, the sudden scan of the bullpen, everything, in perfect order. Simon leaned over his desk and stared at the page until his eyes watered and his lower back started to cramp. It was after five on a Friday, and it wasn't fair they were laying this in his lap now. He had a life, damn it. If they were up for another opening of the Sandburg and Ellison Traveling Freak Show, Simon wanted out from under the Big Top.

The page finished up with Brown's decision to remain on the task force. The date at the top was yesterday's, and Jim had no reason to lie.

Simon took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes hard. "So what does this mean, Jim? That you know Blair pretty well? Congratulations. Maybe we can get you a spot on the Dating Game."

"You know Henry has a little sister."

"Jamie, yeah. Sweet girl." Simon's son thought Jamie was 'wired' -- which, from the drool on his face when he said it, had to be a good thing. "Daryl's had kind of a thing for her for the past month or so, but she won't give him the time of day."

Jim nodded. "That's because she's two years older than he is. She's about the same age as the victims. Two of them went to her school. Brown was spooked. I can't say I blame him."

Mother of God. Like any of them needed a spare reason to be spooked by this case. Simon stood up and went to his window, to the view he'd worked ten long years to earn. Sometime during the last few months, the sunsets had stopped being worth it. "I didn't know."

"He was doing pretty well with it until this last one. I think it just got to be too much. He didn't want to see the department shrink about it; he just wanted out."

"And this involves Sandburg...how, exactly?"

The answer was slow in coming, and when it was out, Simon almost wished Jim had kept it to himself. "This goes back to the sentinel stuff. I know you don't like to think about this, Simon, but it's a part of me, and I think -- no, I know -- that it's a part of Blair, too."

"You are not telling me Blair Sandburg is a sentinel, Jim."

"No. But he is something...more...than we thought he was. He told me the day we met that every sentinel needs a partner, someone to watch his back and make sure he doesn't zone out over his Wheaties. Blair seemed like the obvious, logical choice at the time; he knew about my senses, and he'd just kept me from getting plowed down by a big, loud, ugly yellow truck. I was scared shitless, Simon. Then here's this kid who I pretty much hated on sight saving my life and telling me I'm totally normal."

"And irritating half of the western world, and getting himself into no end of trouble, and dragging you into it with him...."

"That's not really fair. Most of the time it was me dragging him into trouble. He's gone down to the wire for me, Simon, more times than I can count, and he's backed me up like a pro. He's even risked himself for you once or twice. Don't tell me you don't remember."

That took the conversation to another level. Simon wasn't smiling anymore. He remembered all too well. Sandburg had followed Jim out of a plane with nothing but a parachute and a prayer. Hiked through the jungle, past mercenaries and guns and God knew what else to help Jim rescue a friend. Not to mention that friend's adolescent son; Simon owed Daryl's life to Blair as much as he did to Jim. It was a quiet debt, but solid as rock.

"You don't have to sell me on Sandburg, Jim," he said. "I'm sold. Just tell me what's going on."

"Lee Brackett once called Blair my 'guide.' So did Incacha. I don't know what Brackett knew about sentinels, but Incacha was an expert on the subject." Jim's expression grew thoughtful. This was a different side of Ellison. Kind of a weird one. "Blair's got this...ability. This way of shutting me down when I get too intense, or when I can't focus the way I should to use my senses."

Simon could believe that. If the low, even tone of Jim's voice and slightly unfocused eyes were any indication, the memory alone had a calming effect on the detective. "What is he to you?"

Calm eyes refocused on him, intent. "What are you asking, Simon?"

"This sentinel thing. Your partnership. It's not just the police work or the senses."

Jim shook his head slowly. "No. There's more to it. Blair thinks it's an instinct on my part, like a racial memory. Sentinels depended heavily on their partners for backup, for help with their senses." Jim grinned. "He thinks that's why I haven't packed his bags for him."

Simon leaned forward. "Why haven't you?"

"I hate to cook."

Simon let out a bark of laughter and shook his head. "There goes my twenty bucks. You just made Joel Taggart a happy man."

Jim leaned back in his chair, smiling. "What was your money on?"

He knew about the pool? Of course he knew. He had those ears. "Blackmail."

"Thanks, Simon."

"Kid just isn't your type."

Jim smiled, rolling his eyes. "Thanks, Simon."

Simon returned the look, feeling the tension in the room ease. "I still need to know. What is it with you two?"

"I didn't really want to get into this. I haven't thought it through. Incacha said some stuff about Blair...." Jim looked away. "There are some aspects of the sentinel thing neither of us understand, Simon. All I can tell you right now is that I trust Blair, and he trusts me."

Simon shook his head, dismissed a slight twinge of envy, and brought them back on topic. "So, Sandburg has a way with people. That isn't exactly going to stop the presses, Jim."

"It's more than that. Remember when Taggart froze up after the Brackett bomb fiasco? Until he talked to Blair, he wouldn't even go out into the field. If not for that conversation, we'd be short a few churches and probably a few churchgoers in Cascade today."

"Sandburg made a friend for life with that one. Joel stayed on duty straight through when our favorite anthropologist took the elevator ride of his life."

"And stayed with him when I was kidnapped -- a thankless job from all accounts."

"A short one," Simon snorted.

"He finessed some pretty important data out of one of the computer techs, if I remember correctly."

"Okay!" Simon held up his hands, surrendering. "I get it; he's too good at straightening people out for it to be natural. So what do you think it is?"

"I think there may be... guide abilities, for lack of a better term... just like there are sentinel abilities."

"And whatever they are, Sandburg has them." At Jim's nod, Simon frowned. "That's just great, Jim. That's all I needed, somebody else on the force who can do creepy things nobody would ever understand or believe." He sat down behind his desk and rested his head in one hand. "I need a drink."

"There's more, Simon."

Of course there was more. Nothing about Sandburg was ever simple. "Put me out of my misery, Ellison. Skip ahead to the punchline."

"This thing he does, Simon. It hurts him. He gets headaches that last anywhere from half an hour to a day. I think that's why he's always drinking those weird teas. I think he gets them more often than he tells me."

Simon looked at Jim sharply. He didn't like what he saw. The crease between the eyes, the mouth set in a tense, thin line. The guy could out-pale a vampire. There was enough worry in Jim to worry Simon himself, and not just for Sandburg's sake. "How bad are they?"

"He just lies in his room in the dark until the pain goes away. I'm -- concerned, Simon."

Concerned. Scared out of his sentinel skin was more like it. Jim's face hadn't had that carved-in-granite blankness since the bombing at Wilkenson Towers.

Scowling, he sat up straight and glared at Jim. "For Christ's sake, Jim, I get headaches like that just from thinking about my ex-wife. After all the migraines he's given me, Sandburg's earned a few."

"Simon, it's--"

Simon interrupted, shaking his head. He could see when a man needed grounding, and right now Jim needed it bad. "Let me tell you what you're going to do. You're gonna tell Sandburg what's bugging you, because he's got a right to know. Then he's gonna tell you if you're on the right track, because if anybody knows about this stuff, it's Blair. Together, you two are gonna work this thing out and tell me what you've decided. You have any questions?"

Jim's eyebrows rose, but he shook his head.

"Good," Simon said, taking a seat behind his desk and reaching for a folder from his inbox. "Now get out of my office. I've got some police work to do."

The emphasis wasn't lost on Jim. "Thanks, Simon. I'll keep you posted."

"You do that." Simon didn't look up until the door closed.

He leaned back in his chair and rubbed at his eyes, the file before him forgotten. _You keep me posted, Ellison. Maybe in the meantime I can figure out some way to work it into the job without making the Major Crimes team look like the Superfriends._

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


_Deep breath and let it out slowly. Relax. Focus on the dials. Turn them down, one at a time...._

Jim took the deep breath and opened his eyes. It wasn't working. It never worked. The memory of Blair's voice wasn't the reality of Blair's voice, and none of the gimmicks worked when Jim was by himself. His senses clamored at him for attention, sight and sound and smell and touch and taste, each warring with the other for the top slot in the hierarchy of sentinel priorities. His head was splitting, and no matter how hard he tried to follow the breathing exercises Blair had taught him, nothing let up.

Just a traffic jam. It'd started with the horns.

Then it was the acrid exhaust, invading his nose and mouth with gritty chemical intensity, and the reflected sunlight bouncing off of a hundred different chrome bumpers and blinding windows. By the time the gridlock had broken up and grudgingly released him from the insanity of the freeway, even the cool breeze that played against his skin was agony.

Jim rubbed his eyes, feeling his lashes across his fingertips like individual blades and the rough skin of his hands like sandpaper on his eyelids. Thank God he was home. If he could just get upstairs without screaming, Blair could talk him down, ease him out of it.

On the other hand, maybe screaming would get Blair down here....

Probably work, but it would hurt like hell. He was just going to have to make it upstairs on his own. If Blair found him standing in the stairwell screaming, they'd need a crowbar to pry the kid down from the ceiling.

The trip seemed to take days. The stairwell echoed, brick walls grabbing and throwing back every stray wave of sound, and the light from the high windows at each landing was blinding. He could hear Blair moving around in his room before he even entered the stairwell, but he could also hear every other tenant in the building, and the clamor of random noise made his eardrums feel red and raw.

Blair met him on the landing just below their floor, protective instincts blazing, forehead creased with concern.

Jim was more surprised than he should have been, but his gratitude outweighed even that. "Everything's haywire." His own voice grated against raw nerves.

"Don't talk." Blair's voice was, paradoxically, both soothing and urgent, the only sound in the universe that didn't seem to have sharp edges. "Close your eyes, listen to my voice, and breathe, Jim. Fill your lungs, then let the air go. There are only two things in your world: My voice, and air. Focus on those two things, and shut everything else down. Visualize the dials we talked about; it worked before, and it will work now."

Concentrating, Jim built the images in his mind's eye, numbers etched around five knobs in sharp relief. Each of the five were set at ten when he pictured them, and he felt a sudden, irrational anger, as if someone had come in and messed with the equalizer on his stereo while he was away. That's what it felt like: like someone had sneaked into his brain and turned everything all the way up. "This is stupid," Jim said roughly. "I hate this."

Blair ignored him. "Reach out and turn down your hearing, ease it down. Yeah, okay, that's better, huh? That's good. Now sight...."

The low, even tones of Blair's voice lulled him, brought him out of the sensory overload and eased him back from the edge. All of his senses felt a little numbed; they always did after an episode like this, but he knew he could focus them if he had to. Blair had given him that control.

There were hands on his shoulders. He opened his eyes. Jim couldn't help but smile at the look of total concentration and concern on Blair's face. That and the fact that he could no longer count every individual pore in his friend's skin from fifty paces did a lot to reassure him.

"Okay now?"

"Yeah." Jim looked away. He felt good, and feeling good made him awkward. He couldn't figure out what to do with his hands. Even the headache that always accompanied the spikes was fading.

He took a step back. Blair crossed his arms over his chest, eyes tracking every move. "I think I'll live," Jim said finally, and started up the stairs. His partner's expression of barely repressed scientific zeal was starting to make him feel like a bug under a microscope.

"You're welcome," Blair said quietly behind him. Even numbed down, Jim could hear the smile.

He turned, grinning, and let Blair catch up. When his friend drew even, Jim reached up and tugged at one curling lock of hair.

Blair rolled his eyes. "Ow." The tone was complaining, but a slight smile gave him away. "What was that for?"

"Thanks." Jim made sure his sincerity was plain. Blair sometimes missed things like that if Jim didn't put them right out in front of him. "I mean it."

"I know you do, Jim."

Jim shoved his hands into his pockets. "So," he said. Blair didn't smell like a man who'd been cooking. "What's for dinner?"

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Take-out was for dinner, ordered and paid for by Jim after a minor lecture on responsibility and no small amount of teasing. Unfortunately, those were the last few moments of relative peace Blair got for the evening. He'd reacquired the headache that had faded on the stairs and it was growing worse by the second, a steady, painful pounding inside his skull so loud he was almost afraid Jim would hear it, and the dinner conversation only made it worse. By the time they'd finished eating, Blair was in no mood to clean up the kitchen.

He was in no mood to do anything that didn't involve smacking his partner a good one. That wasn't an option; Jim would probably let him get in one decent punch, just to be fair, then wipe the floor with him. Either that or laugh in his face, and frankly, Blair would prefer to get the shit kicked out of him.

Not that it mattered. He wasn't into pointless violence. Thinking about it, yes. Thinking about it a lot, even. Actually hauling off and hitting somebody, though.... Well, he needed a better reason than he had. That was part of why he kept Jim around. Jim slugged people so Blair didn't have to, and Blair finessed people so Jim could be... less than diplomatic. It had always worked in the past and would have continued to work well into the future if Jim hadn't blown it with this empathy bullshit.

The guy lived with an anthropologist for a year or so and suddenly thought he was a scientist. So Blair had helped Brown, so what? He helped a lot of people; it was what he was best at. He didn't need to resort to fairy tales to explain it to himself. It was a talent, just like Jim being a good detective was a talent, like Simon being a good Captain. A man went through life and he did what he was good at and if he was lucky, nobody ever accused him of being a fucking psychic because of it.

"God forbid," Blair said slowly, fighting to remain calm, "that there should be anything in the world I can do better than you. You can't just let me be good at dealing with people, no. That just gives me way too much credit. You're the one in control, man, you always have been. Why do you need to take this away from me?"

Jim's face went blank, and his voice went low. "I'm trying to say it's not just me, now. It's both of us. Incacha saw it; that's why he made you a shaman. This has nothing to do with control; it's about you, about us being equal partners in this thing. I thought you'd be happy about that."

The floor dropped out from under Blair's feet. "Funny thing, Jim," he said. "I thought we were equal partners before."

He watched Jim's face register the shot, watched the understanding slide home with a vicious thrill of satisfaction. He nodded, breathing hard from the effort it took to hold onto the anger while Jim went pale.

"There you have it." Blair didn't say anything further, and he didn't stick around; he slammed the door to his room with a bang, separating himself from Jim in anger for the first time he could remember.

And it was just as well; the guilt set in almost before the glass in the doors stopped rattling. It would have been better if Jim had gotten angry, given back as good as he got, but no. No, tonight Jim was Mr. Friendly and Reasonable. Like Blair was made of glass and might shatter if the truth came at him too hard or too fast.

That should have tipped him off right away. Friendly Jim might be, but reasonable was a stretch. The man could fake reasonable with astonishing skill, when it came to dealing with Simon or the other detectives or even a suspect, but with Blair he didn't even bother trying most of the time. Blair had seen through him almost from the start; beneath the calm, there was a completely immovable core of 'my way' in Jim Ellison's psyche that had nothing to do with higher brain function. Blair accepted it as part of what made the man a sentinel. Sometimes it irritated the hell out of him, but it was there for a purpose. Jim wanted to do things his way, because when it came down to the crunch, his way was almost always the best way.

The rest of the time, Jim's genetic predisposition toward utter self-assurance made Blair feel more than a little predisposed toward hitting him.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


All in all, the evening was not going well.

"I just don't get it." Nobody heard Jim; he was talking to a set of French doors. Maybe he came on too strong, maybe he should've backed off, but Christ, who would've expected Blair Sandburg to throw a hissy fit over a few lousy suggestions? The slamming door had brought Jim's headache into full bloom; if the kid did possess a heightened sense of empathy, he wasn't wasting it on Jim tonight.

Kid. Man. Whatever he was, it'd be nice if he tried acting his age about the whole thing. Sure, Sandburg was a grown-up, but the whining lent a certain childlike lack-of-charm to his personality. That and the sulking. The sulking definitely added something to the effect.

The phone rang, a welcome distraction. "Ellison!" He winced a little at the volume of his own voice. He could hear his roommate moving toward the doors, could almost feel him listening...but he could also hear the voice at the other end of the line like it was coming through a megaphone.

"Simon here, Jim. Round up Sandburg; I need you both to meet me at 527 East Riverside right away. We've got another one."

Jim frowned. "That address sounds familiar," he said, trying to match it to a memory.

"It should," Simon answered. "It's Brown's."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


"That son of a --"

"Jim, it's not the sister. She's fine. Banged up, a little shocky, but she's okay."

Jim reached blindly for the table, a chair, anything to support the weight his knees suddenly couldn't, and wasn't surprised to find a shoulder there for him. He clamped down on it, squeezing so tight it probably hurt.

"Thank God," Jim said. "What happened?"

"The Browns have family visiting from LA. Cousins. One of them -- Bonnie -- was sixteen."

_Was. Was sixteen. Shit._

"What happened?" Jim said again. Blair's eyes got round, and it might've been funny, his completely floored, fish-on-land breathing, except for the fact that it wasn't.

"Brown interrupted him. Jim...he was going after Jamie. He killed Bonnie because--"

"Because she was there."

"Wrong place, wrong time. Jamie's pretty messed up." There was a brief hesitation from the other end of the line. "I want Sandburg to come in on this. Jamie, Brown, his family -- they're in shock right now, but when they come out of it we're gonna need some answers and we're gonna need them fast."

Jim's eyes dropped away from Blair's, and he spoke very quietly into the phone. "No."

"Jim--"

"No! I don't want him on this case, Simon, we've been over this. We've got people for this kind of thing. Trained people. Get one of them on it."

Jim had more to say, a lot more, but the phone was pried out of his fingers. He focused in again on Blair, who just looked at him, daring him to take it back. "Forget that, Simon." Blair never broke eye contact with Jim. "Tell me what you need."

_He's not a kid._ Jim said the words to himself over and over as he watched his partner's eyes grow less certain.

"Of course, Simon," Blair said into the phone. He closed his eyes. "I understand. Yeah, no, I can handle it. Yeah. We'll be there as soon as we can."

Blair's hand fell to his side, and Jim took the phone back before it could drop to the floor and closed it, cutting the connection. "Sandburg?"

"Can we lose the death grip, _Ellison_?"

"Sorry." Jim let go, backing off a few steps, giving his partner some space. He focused on the far wall -- the forest green paint Blair had insisted on, the huge number four he'd refused to paint over because 'even numbers are complete' -- and waited.

"You told Simon about this thing," Blair said, finally opening his eyes. "You had no right." His voice was heavy and low, more tired than angry.

Jim met Blair's eyes for just a moment, then let them fall to the pristine tabletop. It was true. Blair had kept the sentinel study a secret. He'd been prepared to keep it from everyone until Jim decided it was time to let Simon in. Jim hadn't returned that favor. Hadn't even considered it. "I'm sorry." He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans and shook his head. "I didn't think."

Blair nodded. Not so much an acceptance of the apology as a postponement of confrontation, Jim decided. Blair had other things on his mind.

"He thinks I can...that I can somehow...."

"You can."

Blair shook his head. He tangled his fingers in hair falling into his face and pushed it behind his ears roughly. "No. No, you're wrong about that. Even if I did have...something extra in that area...this kind of trauma is complex. It changes people, Jim. They're going to need more than I can give them." He took a deep, tense breath. "Maybe more than anybody can give them."

And there it was. That look Jim hated, that look of remembering. Blair had looked a psycho in the face, and no matter how good you were, how strong you were, that changed something inside you. Maybe it was a good change, maybe it made you smarter, but it made you different, too. Jim had never dealt very well with difference.

Blair's duty to the Cascade PD began and ended with their partnership. Simon's request was way over the line. Blair was right; Jim had no business talking to Simon about things that belonged between just the two of them. He knew, or should have known, that Simon would use whatever tools were at his disposal to see that his people were taken care of.

And no matter the Captain's personal feelings, Blair's ability made him a very, very useful tool.

Jim couldn't think that way. Mostly because Blair was his friend, but also -- there was just something about the idea of putting a shaman at risk, even a brand new one. It made Jim want to glance over his shoulder and keep his gun handy.

He clenched his jaw tightly and made himself a promise. When all of this was over, he and Simon were going to have a long talk about Blair's role in the department. About how when it came to Blair's safety -- physical, or otherwise -- Jim's authority was final.

"You don't have to do this." He tried for that soothing tone Blair used on him so often. Even as he said the words, he knew it wasn't going to work. "You can stay here. It's not your job."

"Just like it's not your job to know what's being said half a mile away? Or to know what kind of cigarettes a bad guy smokes by a three-day-old scent?"

Jim sat down, reached out, and pulled Blair down into the chair next to him. "I'm a cop. Finding things out is my job. You," he continued, pointing, "are an anthropologist. It's a long way from there to being a shrink. Simon had no right to ask for you on this."

"Yeah? Tell that to Simon. He's expecting me to go in there like Cascade's answer to Mr. Spock and keep Henry and his family from falling apart. The guy's sister is gone, man. She may not be the one who died, but she probably wishes she were. It's gonna take more than the Sandburg version of the Vulcan mind-meld to keep that family from self-destructing!"

Jim stopped Blair's monologue with a hard look and a negative jerk of his head. "Nobody's expecting anything from you!" What he lacked in eloquence, he tried to make up in volume. "You're an observer. You're not trained for this."

He'd meant to take off some of the pressure. It was only when Blair's face paled, and his lips pressed into an angry white line, that Jim knew he'd said exactly the wrong thing.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jim." Blair walked to the door, spine straight, shoulders level, grabbing his leather jacket and keys on the way out. "I'll wait for you in the truck. We're late already."

For the second time that day, a door slammed between Jim Ellison and his best friend.

He was really starting to hate that sound.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Blair took several deep breaths while fumbling with his keys, trying to find the new one. Jim had given him a key to the Expedition just a few weeks ago, no fanfare, no big deal, just _Oh, by the way, I had these made, lose them and you're a dead man._ Classic Ellison, right down to the blush. It almost made up for his own lack of privacy. Jim could judge Blair's mood across a crowded room by the speed of his heartbeat, true. But when Jim did something nice, or personal, or, God forbid, friendly -- the man lit up like a Christmas tree. It evened things out.

Blair opened the door and climbed inside, running a silent advice column in his head. He was still someplace between blind fury and absolute terror on the Sandburg Over-reaction Scale. Maybe he could blame it on too much caffeine.

How had everything gotten so complicated so fast? He wanted his normal life back. It wasn't a bad life. A little more exciting at times than he might've liked, but most of the time he enjoyed the excitement and besides, for a cop's partner it was all still fairly normal. Insofar as life with a sentinel could be normal, anyway. Or maybe it wasn't the sentinel thing, maybe it was just life with Jim Ellison that guaranteed you psychotic killers and rogue CIA agents and a hundred other ways to die on any given day. Not to mention a lifetime supply of those little white sticky butterfly things that held the edges of cuts together. He hadn't even known those things existed before he met Jim; now they were on the weekly grocery list right next to iodine and Neosporin.

He wanted to be back upstairs, in his room. He wanted to sit on his bed with his legs crossed and meditate while listening to soothing music, just for a while. A day. Two days, maybe. However long it took to convince himself the last few hours had never happened. He definitely did not want to be sitting in Jim's truck waiting to be taken to Henry Brown's house so he could play guidance counselor and amateur psychic with people who needed serious, professional therapy. It was one thing to have a friendly native say you were a shaman. That was actually pretty cool, and Blair respected the tradition and the man who'd passed it on to him. It was quite another to have your friends and co-workers start to think that made you some kind of miracle-worker.

Blair wanted to fix it for them. He'd open his mind if he thought it would make things better for the Browns. Hell, he'd open a vein if he thought it would do any good, but there were limits to what one person could do for another when tragedy hit so close to home. There were limits, and this was beyond his.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when the driver's side door opened and Jim slid in behind the wheel.

"Your heart rate just went through the roof." Flat, blunt, not even a lead-in. "That's it. Get out of the truck and get your butt back upstairs."

"No way." Blair didn't move. "Methodology aside, dealing with people is my territory. If I need you to shoot somebody, I'll give a yell, okay? Until then, back off." He reached up and pulled the seatbelt across his chest for emphasis, looking up at Jim when the catch clicked into place. He didn't flinch away from the ice in Jim's eyes. Any sign of weakening, and Jim would have him back in the loft inside of fifteen seconds. This was one argument Blair was not going to lose.

Jim sighed and looked away. "What I said up there...I didn't mean that the way it came out, Sandburg," he said, starting the truck.

Blair released a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. He'd known what Jim meant even before he stormed out, but it still felt like a kick in the teeth. "Sorry, Jim." He kept his eyes on the dash. "This hasn't been my finest hour. I'm just the littlest...tiniest bit...freaked out by all this."

"I noticed."

"Let's just go and get it over with, okay?"

Jim nodded and backed the truck out of the parking space. "You know what I'm remembering, Chief?"

"Gee...let me just focus my amazing mental powers."

Jim tossed him a withering look and continued as if Blair hadn't spoken. "I'm remembering how I threw you against a wall when you tried to tell me what was going on with my senses, and how furious I was that this kid, this weird, geeky kid--"

"Thanks, man."

"--was telling me I was going crazy because I was some kind of genetic throwback."

"I thought you were going to rip my head off and play in the blood."

"I had to get to know you a lot better before that option became really attractive."

Blair glanced over at Jim, managing half a smile. "I'm trying to feel sorry for myself here, Jim," he said. "Don't blow it for me."

Jim smiled back. "Sorry. Look, all I'm trying to say is I've been there, okay? You think I wanted to believe that genetic advantage spiel? You had to save my life before I'd give you the time of day."

"Accident, Jim. I just felt like pushing you under a truck. Not for the last time, I might add."

"The way I acted, who could blame you?" Jim said. "The thing is, you were right, and I didn't believe you, and I gave you a hard time about it for way too long."

"And the moral of this story," Blair finished for him, leaning his head back against the seat and closing his eyes, "is that if I just listen to you about this shamanic guide/empathy theory of yours, we'll all be better off in the long run."

"You catch on pretty fast, Sandburg. You should maybe think about detective work."

Breathing got a little easier. This was better, he felt better, could maybe smile, even, if he worked at it. Guilty for it, but better all the same. What had happened to the Browns was a tragedy, but it wasn't his tragedy, or Jim's. Life affirmation came in a lot of different flavors, and if being a sarcastic bastard was Jim's way, Blair could roll with it. Their world was still whole, and if not precisely sane, at least not so crazy they couldn't deal with it. He relaxed a little and let the smile stay where it was.

"Almost there." Jim turned into a subdivision Blair wasn't familiar with.

Dread slammed back into his heart full-force. So much for calm and collected.

"You're sure I can't talk you out of this? Because Simon and I-- "

"I can handle it, Jim. You and Simon are about as sensitive as pet rocks on your best days; it's good that I'll be there, even if I don't have...." Blair stopped and took a deep breath. "Man, I can't even make myself say it," he said.

"Then we'll call it something you can say. Any ideas?"

Blair had several, but none he felt like sharing with Jim.

"Okay, fine," Jim said. "You don't want to call it empathy, we'll call it...an enhanced sensitivity to emotional output."

"Thank you, Dr. Science." Blair laughed in spite of himself and shook his head. The guy was trying so hard.

Jim grinned, looking over toward Blair, then back to the road. "I know you don't want to hear it, Sandburg, but this thing you have is real. I've been watching too closely for too long to be wrong about it, and I have pretty good vision." They stopped at a four-way, pulled through an intersection. Jim found them a spot between an ambulance and Simon's Taurus. "We're here."

Blair exhaled slowly and willed his heartbeat to slow down. It didn't work, and he knew Jim could hear it. "I'm fine," he said. "I'll be fine."

"Hey, Blair?"

Blair paused with his hand on the door and turned back to Jim. "Yeah?"

"How'd you know I needed your help today? Down there on the stairwell? How'd you know to look for me?"

Blair's eyes widened, and he felt his heart slamming into his ribcage, faster than before. His mouth opened, but no sound emerged. He wasn't sure what he'd planned to say, anyway.

Jim smiled at Blair slightly, reassuringly, and squeezed his shoulder with a broad, comforting hand. "Don't zone on it, Chief. Just give it some thought. Okay?"

Blair nodded and tried to swallow past a knot that had formed in his throat.

"Let's go," Jim said, and climbed out of the truck.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


It was with a strange sense of deja vu that Jim watched Blair take charge of the neighbors' small house. This was the Browns' best shot at sanctuary while the police conducted their investigation. Blair owned the place and everyone within it from the moment he walked through the door. There were no walls high enough to keep Blair out.

It was exactly what had happened when the two of them met for the first time -- Jim putting up walls and defenses and Blair sailing past them like he didn't even notice. Jim Ellison was a practical man. When it became clear there was no keeping him out, Jim just rebuilt the walls with Blair on the inside. Not precisely what he'd had in mind when he took on a new partner, but nowhere near as bad as he'd expected, either. Once he got what he wanted, Blair could be surprisingly easy to get along with.

Jim observed the familiar pattern with senses tuned high, ignoring the possibility of a zone-out as he focused on his partner. Blair was just sitting at the dining room table, his hands clasped in front of him on the scarred pine surface, drawing people in with his eyes. He should have been totally out of place, a white, long-haired, four-eyed academic dressed in layers of grunge a la Salvation Army, and Nike sneakers that probably cost about half of his monthly financial aid check. The Browns and their neighbors were older, conservative, and Jim hadn't expected them to take to Blair so quickly. He wasn't saying anything special, nothing wise or deep or even particularly relevant. Nothing with the power to win anyone over or relieve anyone's grief or fear -- half of it didn't even make any sense.

'Get your heart out of your head?' What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Some of it had to be the voice. It was that low, grounding tone that Blair used whenever he needed Jim to focus. Something about it resonated with Jim, speaking to a part of him even he couldn't reach, easing pain and panic or pulling him back from a zone-out -- providing whatever rescue was needed with a regularity he had come to depend on. It was interesting, and vaguely disturbing, to hear it directed away from him. Probably just nerves, but...something about it felt almost dangerous.

Jim tried to get to the bottom of that discomfort, but his thoughts slid away from it. Not surprising; self-analysis didn't rank very high on the Jim Ellison priority scale. Even after those last tortuous months with Carolyn, when they'd tried every pop psychology marriage-patch Waldenbooks had to offer, he was more comfortable acting on his emotions than labeling them.

So he let the question slide. Gotta get my heart out of my head, he thought with dark amusement, shaking his head as he left Blair to his work. Damned if it didn't make a little sense after all.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Blair held the small, fragile hands of Galena Brown in both of his own, breathing in the scent of the talc she used to keep her skin soft and the faint trace of lavender that surrounded her. He was totally focused, so lost in concentration he'd almost lost track of what he was saying to her. Her niece was dead, her daughter in shock, and now she gazed at him almost hungrily over the tabletop between them.

Whispering something new, Blair looked into her eyes. They were almost black, a stark contrast to her skin; she was lighter than either of her sons or her daughter, almost light enough to 'pass' if it weren't for her crinkled, gleaming black hair. Tall and delicate, she seemed too beautiful for this, for the pain that filtered through the house like dark, oily smoke.

Whatever he'd said, it was working. She couldn't smile -- Blair would've worried if she could -- but he could feel the tension easing out of her. It was like more than comfort was being drawn out of him, more than reassurance feeding into her. For just a moment, Blair closed his eyes and felt a wash of dizziness pour through him.

A hand on his shoulder brought him back.

"Hey, Henry."

"Hey, Blair. Hey, Mama. You doing all right?" Henry reached up and smoothed a hand over his mother's hair.

"Your friend is taking good care of me," Galena said. "Are your people done with my girl?"

"Mrs. Brown, Jamie is going to need to go to the hospital." Blair gave her hand a squeeze to keep her anchored. "She may need care only they can give her."

"He's right, Mama. She needs to go, but she doesn't want to. You think you can talk some sense into your daughter?"

"I can try." She rose from the table. "Not that I ever managed it in the past." For a moment she stood still, as if she'd forgotten what she was doing, but when her eyes met Blair's the confusion left them. "Thank you, Mr. Sandburg, for everything you've said. You've eased my mind considerably."

"Blair," he corrected automatically. "And you're very welcome, Mrs. Brown. I'm here if you want to talk to me again."

"I just might."

As she turned from them, her spine straight with determination, Henry seemed to deflate. His own strength seemed to go with her, deserting him as he sank down into the chair she'd just vacated.

Blair took a deep breath and reached out to settle a firm, warm hand over Henry's where it rested on the table. "Talk to me." He resisted the urge to rub at his suddenly burning eyes. Henry was vibrating with tension, chaotic emotions almost palpable in the air between them.

"I can't."

But he met Blair's eyes, and he didn't pull his hand away.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Jim headed next door, toward the heart of the police activity: Jamie Brown's bedroom. Simon was already there, a cigar clamped between even white teeth and enough tension to give the entire police force an ulcer written in the haggard lines of his face.

"It's about time you showed up," Simon said.

Beneath the gore, the walls were light pink, the tangled bedspread and sheets an antique ivory. Stuffed animals were scattered over the bed and the hardwood floor. Next to the bed, half hidden by the comforter, an open CPR handbook rested face down beside a bright green, lime-scented highlighter. A poster of Denzel Washington in a sharp suit and shades was pinned to one wall, next to a collage of pictures, ticket stubs and party favors. On the opposite wall, a life-sized image of Harrison Ford in full expedition regalia smirked down on the forensics team.

There was a small, delicate red handprint obscuring part of the movie's title. Jim clenched his jaw against the rising nausea in his gut and looked away.

There was more blood than he'd expected. This killing was unplanned, a messy reaction to an unexpected situation. Jim automatically tuned his hearing, searching through the walls of both houses for a familiar voice and tagging it, letting part of himself monitor its position while the rest of him focused on the investigation. Blair was in the neighbor's kitchen. If he left the house, Jim would know it and be there to stop him. This scene definitely fell into the category of 'things Sandburg doesn't need to see'. Hell -- it fell into the category of 'things Jim Ellison doesn't need to see,' too, but at least one of them wasn't going to have it permanently tattooed on the inside of his eyelids.

"What've we got, Simon?" He deliberately kept his vision within normal parameters as he scanned what was left of the bedroom.

"He came in through the window."

Jim turned toward the voice that had answered him and found Henry Brown's partner surveying the room with cold, hard eyes. Brian Rafe was as close to the Browns as family, and Jim didn't need any empathic abilities to feel the anger behind the man's stony expression. There were lines on his face Jim was sure hadn't been there before.

"It was locked." Rafe's voice was flat as a recording. "But the lock doesn't quite catch all the time. From what we could gather, he was waiting in the closet when Jamie got in from band practice. Bedroom door was open, jacket was on the floor next to the closet. The initial struggle took place right in front of the closet door, and Jamie got knocked out. Near as we can tell, he didn't expect Bonnie to be right behind Jamie. She surprised him, and he killed her for it. He heard Brown coming in and made a break for it."

The facts of the recitation bothered Jim less than the tone. He turned away from Rafe without a word and fixed Simon with a hard look. "He is not working this case." Jim jerked his head toward Rafe. "Tell me you're not letting him work this case."

"He'll work it illegally if I don't let him come on board officially, Jim. At least this way I can keep an eye on him."

"I'm standing right here." Rafe's eyes flicked back and forth between Simon and Jim. "I've got it together, Jim, and I want in on this. My partner's counting on me. Jamie's like my own sister."

Jim laid a hand on Rafe's shoulder. There was a serene, implacable light in the dark eyes that met his, and Jim felt himself losing the argument before it even started. "That's exactly why you belong anywhere but here." It was a last-ditch attempt to reach the cop inside the angry young man. It didn't seem to be working. "Come on, Brian. I expect this kind of thing from Sandburg, he doesn't have a clue about police procedure. You know better. You're too close."

"You suddenly hip deep in manpower, Ellison? Last I heard, you needed every warm body you could find."

"He's right, Jim," Simon said. And in a lower voice, one only Jim could hear: "I'll keep an eye on him. It'll be okay."

Jim took a deep breath, staring at the grisly red patterns on the far wall. God, he hated this case. It was ugly, it was brutal, and unless Jamie Brown was able to give one hell of a description, it was going completely nowhere. And now, this.

This killing hit way too close to home. It had become personal, and personal could very quickly lead to deadly if they weren't all one hundred percent present every step of the way. Brown, one of the best they had, was out of it now, and Rafe was going to be a total loss if he couldn't get the anger under control. His team was falling apart right in front of him, and there wasn't a damn thing Jim could do about it.

God, there was just so much red....

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


"Thank God you sent me to talk to her." Each word seemed forced out of Henry's mouth. His eyes were downcast, his face a still-life. "If you hadn't-- if I hadn't come here right from the station--"

"But you did." Blair squeezed Henry's hand hard, forcing him to look up. "You came straight here, and Jamie's safe because of it. Because of you."

"Bonnie ain't. Oh, man. If I'd been a few minutes sooner--"

"If band practice had lasted a few minutes longer. If they'd stopped for a coke on the way home. If they'd hung out in the living room instead of the bedroom. There are a hundred ways this could've gone down differently, Henry, but it didn't and that's nobody's fault but _his_." The last word tasted bad. It tasted like the bile that rose at the back of Blair's throat every time he thought of the animal that had wrecked this family. Other families.

"I'm supposed to protect them."

"You did everything you could. You saved Jamie's life, man. The rest of it, that's just fate. You want to be thankful, be thankful that you could prevent any part of what that bastard set in motion today."

Before Blair even finished speaking, Henry's hand had tightened around his. The bones in his hand ground together. It hurt. Blair didn't let go.

"I can't go for him," Henry said. "They need me here. Jamie and my mom need me."

"Henry, you're hurting me."

The words had no effect. There was a pleading mixed in with the demand, a desperation Blair couldn't ignore. "I'm giving it to you and Ellison. Rafe's already on it. You get him, Blair. You hear me? I want him, and I want you and Jim and Rafe to get him for me."

"You need to let go--"

"Promise me." Henry's voice went deep, and his grip tightened. "Promise me!"

He wasn't ready for this, and it was wearing him down, but something inside him wouldn't let him stop. He couldn't let it rest, not with this much hurt still coiling deep within Henry, screaming to him for solace. Blair gave up, gave in to it, pouring himself out, pouring everything he had to give into this man who had come to him almost instinctively for comfort and care. A part of him sang with something like joy, secure in the certainty that this was what he was born for, this task, this purpose.

The rest of him hurt like hell.

"We'll do it, Henry." The pain in his hand was nothing now; the ache in his head threatened to drown out his very thoughts. "I promise you. We'll do it."

Henry relaxed suddenly, completely, like a puppet whose strings had been cut unexpectedly. His grip on Blair's fingers relaxed as he slumped forward, resting his head on their joined hands. "Thank you." Relief ebbed out of him in waves. "Thank you."

Blair eased back, pulling his hand free, and took a deep breath. Henry let him go, then looked up to catch his eyes.

"You do good work, Hairboy," he said.

Back to basics, then. "So I'm told."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


The zone-out lasted only a few moments, but it was enough to lose track of Blair. Enough to draw Blair to his side through the walls of two houses. Jim recognized the hand on his shoulder instantly, touch breaking through the seduction of vision just seconds before he moved forward into Blair's space. He tried to use sheer body mass to block as much of Blair's view of the room as possible, and for just a moment, he thought it might be enough.

"Hey, Jim, I know you guys still have to question Jamie, but we talked her into going with the para-- Oh, my God." The odd thickness of Blair's voice as it wound down to nothing was all the warning Jim needed and then some. When they'd discovered Susan Frasier's body in her bathtub a year before, his voice had been the same.

"Damn it, Sandburg!" Jim grabbed his partner by the elbow and dragged him out of the room. He ignored the strange looks and propelled Blair out of the house and onto the back porch steps, into the cool night air. "Sit," he ordered as soon as they were alone. His voice more harsh than he intended.

"No argument." Blair slid down one of the supporting columns and leaned forward until his head was between his knees, and took several deep, gasping breaths. Jim rested one hand on Blair's back, using his splayed fingers as diagnostic tools, cataloguing the vital signs of the body beneath them. Blair's heart rate was way too fast, but slowing steadily. His breathing was uneven, but moving back toward normal. It was the temperature spike, the heat radiating through Blair's flannel shirt, that bothered Jim the most.

"Talk, Sandburg," Jim said, and waited. Blair would know what he was asking.

"Just the usual." Blair's voice was unnaturally tight. He stared at the grass, the dark shadows of the trees, anything but Jim. "I'm okay."

Jim shook his head, less surprised than he'd like to be. "Your pulse is one hundred and fifteen beats per minute. You're hyperventilating. And you just spiked a fever of a hundred and one degrees." Jim hesitated for just a moment before plowing on. It was time Blair knew exactly who he wasn't fooling. "And your head hurts like hell, too. Again. I can see it in your eyes, so don't even try lying. Again." he added when Blair's head snapped up. "If you think any of that translates into 'okay,' chief, we're getting you a new dictionary on the way back home."

"Oh, man. You know about the headaches? How did you-- Hey, did you use your senses on me, Jim? That is so cool--"

Jim held up a hand to stem the tide of questions and rolled his eyes toward the sky. Blair didn't even have the grace to look embarrassed. "Yeah, I know about the headaches. I've known for months. When were you planning to tell me, Mr. I Need the Whole Mosaic?"

Blair winced slightly, whether from the pain or from the sarcasm Jim didn't know. "For Pete's sake, Jim. They're just headaches. Relax."

"Save your energy," Jim said. "It's not going to work this time."

Blair shook his head and lowered it to rest in his hands. "Probably not a bad idea," he said. "I'm in no condition to fight. Yeah, I get headaches. Yeah, they hurt. They last a few hours, and then they go away." Blair glanced up sideways, the resolve and sincerity written in his expression just a little too deliberate.

Jim's eyes narrowed.

"Look, if it were bad enough to see a doctor about, I'd go, Jim. I wouldn't mess around with my health. Too much to live for, you know?"

Jim knew. He knew that even if he hadn't been worried before, that fake smile Sandburg was trying to sell would've unraveled him. "I'm getting you to a hospital." Jim stood up.

Blair caught his arm and rose up with him. "Jim. I told you, that's not necessary. I just need to get my breath back, okay? Look, I'm sorry I freaked out on you. I just--"

"That's enough." There were red lines through the whites of Blair's eyes. The pain was worse than he was letting on. "I decide if you need medical treatment, _partner_, not you. When we're on the job, I'm in charge, remember? And I don't want to hear any apologies. I zone out, you freak out. We're pretty much even on the unreliability scale."

"Yeah, but you have an excuse. I'm just a wuss."

Jim let out a short bark of laughter. It was true Blair didn't look like much of a threat, with his long hair and expressive, open face. For a self-confessed obfuscator, Sandburg was easier to read than a book-on-tape. And yeah, he did tend to avoid situations where he might be called upon to do violence, most of the time. But when it came to sheer guts and determination, the guy was like a force of nature. You didn't fight him, and you didn't reason, you just got the hell out of his way. Covert Ops could've used a few more 'wusses' like Sandburg.

There were about a hundred kind, reassuring things Jim could say to make that clear, but in this frame of mind there was no way Blair would hear them. "Nobody talks about my partner that way, Sandburg," he growled. "Not even you."

Blair glanced up at Jim, totally unfazed. He smiled, his real smile, blue eyes bright with humor. "We have got to talk about these public displays of affection, Jim," he said. "You're embarrassing me."

"You're genetically incapable of embarrassment. And you're still running a fever."

"I'm fine."

Jim sighed and let go of the control that kept his senses tuned beyond normal range. Blair had that look in his eyes again, the one that said only brute force was going to get him to a doctor and that he wasn't going down without a fight. Jim wasn't above a little manhandling when the situation called for it, but Blair did seem to be recovering. Getting his way would take more physical strength than Jim was prepared to use against his partner, so he backed off. "If you should suddenly find yourself not fine," Jim said, "I want you to tell me right away." Jim had an immovable expression of his own, and he used it now to forestall any argument on the matter.

Blair waved him off, smiling as he shook his head. Jim knew Blair hated to be mothered, but Christ, if anybody ever needed it....

Jim was already walking away when Blair went for the last word. His voice was pitched almost too low for even sentinel ears, and Jim had to strain to hear it. "Cut the cord if you're going far."

Turning around would spoil Blair's fun, so Jim kept his eyes forward and smiled quietly to himself as he stepped inside the house. The return of his friend's teasing did more to reassure Jim than anything else could have; when he held onto Blair with his hearing this time, it was more out of habit than concern.

Jim made it all the way to Jamie Brown's bedroom before Blair's breathing went wildly, crazily out of control.

In the span of a second, every trace of Blair Sandburg's presence was ripped from Jim's mind with a sudden, savage violence that drove him to his knees.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Simon was there, and Rafe, and someone else Jim couldn't recognize. Someone in a uniform, not a cop. EMT, a voice in his mind supplied. There were two of them, working over him, bringing him back from the darkness.

"Blair?"

"Kid's probably still out back losing his lunch," Simon said. "What happened, Jim? You were walking down the hall, and--"

"Let me up." Jim shoved the EMT away from him and struggled to stand. The second one held him down against the gurney, readying the straps to immobilize him.

"Simon, something's wrong. Damn it, let me go!" This time the EMT hadn't braced himself; Jim shoved hard, and the young man overbalanced. Jim was on his feet a second later, trailing Simon and the second EMT behind him.

Blair lay face down in the grass just to the left of the back porch, convulsing. The yellow glow from the porch light streamed over him. He looked jaundiced. Aged. Jim fell to his knees beside his friend and gathered him up, trying to still the twitching, jumping muscles contorting Blair's body. For a moment, there was hope. The convulsions slowed, then stopped altogether. Everything, everything, became still. The wind in the trees overhead. The people pressing in on him. The thready pulse beneath his fingers.

Simon was there again. Jim looked up at him, shook his head. "He's dead," Jim said to Simon.

"Not yet, Jim. Let go. Let them help him."

"It's over."

"Ellison! You let go and you do it now, Detective!"

A new voice, absolute confidence and command. Jim's arms opened almost of their own will, decades of training making the response to that kind of authority instinctive. It took him a second to recognize the voice, but the face that moved into view was easier to place. Brown eyes, brown hair, concern--

Rafe.

"That's it. Hand him over." The gentleness in his voice after the harshness of the order came as a shock. Jim's resistance crumbled. It wasn't Blair's voice, but it was kind.

The EMTs took the body from him and moved it to a level space on the ground a short distance away. Jim could hear their voices, but he couldn't understand the words. He tried to tune his hearing to the rapid-fire, coded conversation, but the control he reached for was gone. This is how it starts, he thought, this is how it ends. Losing Danny was a prelude to this. His senses had failed him then; this would be worse.

He couldn't be a sentinel without Blair, so it didn't really matter. He couldn't even be Jim Ellison without Blair now. Everything Blair had held together was falling apart. Still, he needed to do something for Blair. He needed to see what was happening, to preserve his friend's dignity by bearing witness to it.

Hearing a lost cause, he tried for sight. It worked. He zeroed in on the pasty, grey skin of Blair's face.

It worked too well. The zone-out took him almost instantly, pulling him away from the pain of loss. Jim was grateful for it. It didn't matter that this time there would be no guide to lead him back from it.

Coming back was not part of the plan.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


It was just past midnight when the door to Blair's hospital room swung open, waking him from an uneasy slumber. In the confused moment between sleep and consciousness, he thought he might be wrong, that it could be Jim coming in to check on him. Maybe bringing him some books or sneaking in a sandwich.

But it wasn't going to work that way. Whoever this was, it wasn't Jim.

"Just me, kid." Simon's voice broke through that painful thought. When his eyes fell on the dark skin and darker eyes of the man at his bedside, Blair took a deep breath.

"Sir." No surprise to hear his voice crack. "Water, please?"

Simon helped Blair hold his head up to drink before setting it on the bedside table. The help wasn't really necessary, but Blair knew better than to argue. He'd won arguments with Simon in the past, but never from a hospital bed. Wearing a paper gown that opened at the back didn't exactly translate into leverage.

Blair nodded his thanks. "What happened?" He knew he wasn't going to like the answer. He already knew the truth; he just couldn't bring himself to say it. No one had said it yet, not the doctors who'd come in to explain his condition or the plastic-faced nurse who'd brought him food and pain pills earlier. He'd eaten the food and ditched the pills; he wanted to be clear-headed when they finally told him. And anyway, medication wasn't going to help the thing that hurt the most.

Simon stood quietly beside his bed, looking like life as he knew it was over.

"It's okay, Simon," Blair said. "All you have to tell me is how it happened." His hands twisted restlessly in the sheet that lay over his chest, his knuckles white with the tension of his grip.

Simon's head snapped up, but the surprise faded from his eyes almost immediately. He shook his head slowly. "Damn bureaucrats. I must've told ten different doctors to let me be the one to talk to you about Jim."

"Nobody told me. Nobody had to tell me."

"I see."

"When can I get out of here?" Not that he knew where he'd go. Not back to the loft, God, never there again. But this place was almost as bad. This would be the place they'd brought Jim first, and maybe he was still here somewhere, maybe in the morgue, one of those silver-faced cabinets.

"Hey. Cut that out, Sandburg."

His nails had cut into the palm of his hand. He was bleeding on the clean white sheet.

"The doctor said I could take you to see him." Simon took Blair's hand to examine the damage. He pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket of his charcoal blazer and pressed it against the line of small wounds. "You can sit with him for a few minutes. That's all I could arrange."

"No, thanks," he said quickly. "I just want to get out of here, man. I can't go back home, though. If you take me to my office, I can crash there until I find a new place. Do you think Rafe or Henry would bring me my stuff from the loft?"

"Sandburg, what the hell are you talking about?"

Blair swallowed, looking down at the bloodstained sheet. "I can't go back there, Simon. I know it's stupid, it's just a place, but I'm not up to it. You understand?"

"No, I don't understand," Simon snapped. "Jim is unconscious, probably dying, and you don't want to see him? All you can think about is getting your stuff from the loft? Have you lost your-- Blair? Hey, look, I didn't mean to yell, kid, but...."

Blair could feel the blood draining away from his face. His heart broke into a sudden, trip hammer rhythm. The air in the room was thick as syrup. "Unconscious."

"Yes, unconscious. He's been out since your...episode. He stopped breathing. They've got him on a machine--"

"Simon, don't...don't fuck with me about this. Jim's okay?"

"He's in very critical condition, but he's alive. That's all anyone can say right now."

"He's not here...." Blair trailed off, unwilling to elaborate on that, even to himself. He searched himself for the connection, couldn't find it. Panic made his voice strident. "He's not...."

"Sandburg, I just came from there. Believe me, I know Jim Ellison when I see him."

Blair focused on Simon, watching for something he couldn't even define. He couldn't believe he was doubting the man, actually doubting the word of Simon Banks, but the part of him that believed in the invulnerability of Jim Ellison was silent now, like a burned out radio receiver.

But Simon wouldn't lie. Blair flipped back the thin blanket and sheet, swung his legs over the side of the bed. Once on his feet he wobbled--or the room did. He reached out to Simon for a steadying hand and shot the captain a thankful look when it was offered automatically. Simon wouldn't lie. "Take me to him."

"You're not up to this, Sandburg. I'm getting one of the doctors in here--"

"Damn it, Simon, take me to him! You say he's unconscious, fine. Whatever. But that's not the only thing wrong with him, or you wouldn't have let me out of bed in the first place. If he's alive--"

"I'm not saying it again."

"--then he's totally zoned out. I'm right, aren't I? He's zoning, and the doctors have no clue what's going on with him." Blair put every ounce of determination he possessed into the effort to hold Simon's eyes with his own. The captain wasn't above a little obfuscation if he thought it would keep Blair in bed.

Simon's lips tightened, and he hesitated a moment before answering. "His eyes are open."

That was it. That was all Blair needed to know. He nodded, which was not a terrifically good idea. Nausea nearly overwhelmed him, and his head began to pound with a loud, angry pain. He fought both back and stepped carefully over to the bedside chair. "Get me my clothes."

"Look--"

"They're in the closet by the door."

"Sandburg--"

"Don't forget my socks. They'll be on the top shelf."

Simon scowled, but went to the closet and pulled a pair of faded, battered jeans off of a wire hanger. "Which shirt?"

"Both." Blair slid his legs carefully into the denim while holding on, white-knuckled, to the back of the bedside chair. "This place is freezing."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Blair braced himself against the frame of the door, unable to look away. Electrodes on Jim's chest lead to a gently beeping monitor, and a tube fed into his mouth from a ventilator, held in place with clear tape. Blair swallowed once, hard, around the lump that had formed in his throat. "Jim."

Simon moved past him, into the dimly-lit room. "He can't hear you."

"Don't tell me what he can hear," Blair said. "I know what he can hear."

"How do you know?"

"I just know."

With exaggerated patience: "_How_ do you know?"

"I took a class," Blair said sharply, before he could catch himself.

Simon didn't say anything. He didn't have to. It was enough to see the surprise on his face. Blair breathed deep and started again. "I'm sorry, Simon. Out of line. But look -- you're just gonna have to trust me here, okay? Sometimes I have no idea what to do next, but sometimes...I just know. Okay?"

Simon's regard was heavy and direct. No bullshit there. "You think you can help him?"

"I know I can, Simon. You've just got to give me the chance."

Simon turned back to look at Jim, at the blue eyes fixed, unseeing, on the ceiling. "Do it."

"Whatever it takes?"

"Just do it, Sandburg. Don't make me regret this."

Blair's lips tightened. Nothing like a little pressure to make life sweeter. "Okay. First, I have to get this tube out of his throat. When I do that the monitors are going to go crazy, and the duty nurse is going to show up. You have to stall her. I need three minutes alone with him at least--"

Simon's head whipped around. "No way, Sandburg, that thing's breathing for him!"

"It's also feeding into his senses, Simon. I've got to get rid of as much sensory input as possible. The tube goes."

"He'll die without it."

"He'll die anyway. This is the only chance he's got. If he stays like this much longer, we could lose him." Blair's own doubts had taken up residence in Simon's face. "I can do this," he said. "Let me."

"Something else you 'just know.'"

"Yes. It is."

"God damn it." Simon raised a shaky hand to his face and wiped away beaded sweat. "Fuck."

That was more cussing in five seconds than Simon usually worked into a year. Blair took it for consent.

With swift, sure motions he stripped away the tape. "I once spent a month living with some cousins of mine in Seattle." He kept his eyes on Jim; he didn't want to look at Simon. He was afraid the captain would see right through him, see that in this case 'just knowing' translated into not knowing what he was doing at all. Running on instinct, with no conscious understanding of what had to be done, or why. "One of them had a cleft palate, and I watched them a couple of times when Aunt Nita had to bring him in. Hand me that suction thingy on the wall...yeah, the thing making that whistling noise."

"You sure you know how to use this?" Simon held it just out of reach.

Blair kept his eyes on his hands as they worked over Jim. "Uh...yeah. Mostly. Tilt his head back for me, okay? Hold him still. And give me the damn suction tube, Simon, I don't have all day here!"

"Still?"

"Just in case," Blair said darkly.

And then he addressed himself to his partner.

"Jim, it's me. It's Blair." He glanced up at Simon. This was something private; it felt weird to have eyes on him, to know somebody else was listening. "I have to talk to him for this to work," Blair said in a quiet aside.

"Then get on with it," Simon snapped. "Go on."

Blair watched Simon's eyes for a moment longer, pleased to find a spark of the trust he'd pleaded for earlier, then nodded.

"Jim, we don't have much time. I know we've never done this with a studio audience, but you know the drill, it's just the same. I need you to focus on just one of your senses. Try hearing, okay, Jim? I know you can see, too, but your hearing is your strongest sense. Let it override all the others.

"Listen to me, Jim, and don't be afraid." A soft sound that was probably a snort came from Simon's side of the bed, and Blair glared at the captain over his friend's body. "Just relax," he continued. "I'm going to have to take you off of this machine, and it's not going to be fun for either of us. I'm basically hating the whole idea myself, and I don't have a tube stuck down my throat. So just...be ready, okay? And I'd take it as a personal favor if you'd try to breathe when I yank this thing."

Bracing himself, Blair took a firm grip on the ventilator tube and slowly, gently pulled it from Jim's throat.

The choking began almost immediately, and the steady beep of the heart monitor became a frenzied alarm. "Hold him!" Blair 's voice shook, but his hands were steady. Using the suction tube, he cleared Jim's throat and mouth of the secretions that had built up around the plastic.

"Sandburg...."

"I got it, Simon--"

"He's not breathing!"

"I said, I got it!" Blair dropped the suction tube and put one hand on Jim's forehead. It was more for his own good than for Jim's, but it felt like the right thing to do. With the other hand, he stripped away the electrodes on Jim's chest. "He wouldn't be choking if he weren't at least trying to breathe. The nurse is probably on her way. Keep her out of here. Three minutes, Simon, that's all I need. Turn off the lights on your way out. Go!"

Sparing only a single, hopeful glance, Simon went.

"Come on, Jim. Keep breathing. Come on. Whatever it is that sent you in there, it's over. Time to come home. Damn it, Ellison, I know you can hear me!"

It was all but inaudible, a low, rasping, painful sound. Another breath. And another.

"That's it. That's it! All the way back, Jim. Keep breathing, keep listening. Man, you don't even want to know what Simon's gonna do to me if you're not okay. It could get really, really unattractive for me, you know? There you go, keep that up, that's good. Just keep breathing."

Blair levered himself up onto the bed and arranged himself in a lotus position next to Jim's feet. The nausea and pain he'd been fighting were gone; his heart was pounding hard and fast, and breathing hurt his throat a little, but beyond that Blair felt fine. Good, even.

He closed his eyes, rested his hands palm up on his knees, and kept talking.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


_Give me strength_. Simon shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose with one hand and fished his cell phone out of his jacket with the other. Ellison thinking Sandburg was dead when the paramedics were bringing the kid around not ten feet away; Sandburg thinking Ellison was dead when the man was just a few floors away and very much alive, even if he didn't look like he'd stay that way for long. Sandburg, who didn't spend a whole lot of time in his right mind to begin with, acting like he'd died himself and somehow forgotten to fall over. And Jim -- well, God himself might know what had happened to Ellison when he thought Sandburg was gone, but he certainly wasn't telling Simon Banks.

Simon jabbed at the numbers on the phone and lifted it to his ear, counting the rings for something to do while he waited. It wasn't long before Taggart's voice came over the line.

"Problem at the hospital," Simon said.

"Jim?"

"Off the ventilator. Sandburg's with him."

"What's the problem, then?"

Simon took a deep breath. "The doctors didn't take him off the ventilator. Sandburg did."

There was a long silence, during which Simon could almost hear Taggart processing the information. "Shit," Joel said finally. "Is there anything that kid won't do?"

"I try not to think about it. Look, I need some back-up down here. It's not -- well, it's not going to go by the book."

"I don't think Sandburg knows about the book," Joel said. "What do you need?"

"Two should do it. Just in case."

"I'll bring Rafe. Be there in ten."

Simon hung up and hung onto his place in front of the door. Nobody was getting into that room until Sandburg gave the word. He had a badge, God damn it. And if that didn't work, he had a gun.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


It was Sandburg's voice, but that didn't make any sense. Sandburg was gone. Jim remembered that very clearly. He'd been there, and then he'd been gone, like the flip of a switch. Only now there was this voice, pulling him back, and no matter what memory was telling him, it sure as hell sounded like Blair.

Except Blair was dead. Wasn't he?

"...and so I told him to get me my socks, and man, you should've seen the look on his face, Jim. It was a thing of beauty. I know you would've...."

The voice trailed off, uncertain. Jim waited in darkness, tuning his hearing to pick up the next sound ...and found the voice again. Strong and clear. Even. Remembered.

Blair.

"....Okay, you probably don't care about that, huh? It's just that I'm getting kinda worried here, Jim. We're a little pressed for time, and I don't know how much longer Simon can hold off the guys in white coats, you know? They don't sound too happy out there. And look, I can't do this on my own, okay? I really just can't even think about that, so--"

"Blair."

"Jim!" Blair jumped off the bed and moved to Jim's side. His fingers clutched the bed's railing tightly. "Oh, wow. Thank you!" He looked up at the ceiling before fixing his gaze on Jim again. "Man, I can not tell you how glad I am you decided to wake up. I was scared out of my mind."

Jim reached out, his hand closing hard around Blair's wrist. He was real, flesh and blood, living and breathing, right there next to the bed.

"Ow," Blair said, not even trying to pull away. He smiled, as reassuring as only Blair could look under these circumstances. "You break it, you buy it," he said lightly. But his hand closed over Jim's. "Thank God," Blair said, his voice low and strained. "I was--"

"Me, too." Jim rested his other hand on top of Blair's, as tangled a connection as every other connection between them. "But we're okay now. Both of us." Damned if he could figure out how, but he wasn't complaining.

"Simon's out in the hall," Blair said. "We're kind of under siege."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm not exactly on staff here, Jim, you know? And when I pulled the tube out of your throat, the machines... "

Jim could actually feel the blood draining from his face. Involuntarily, he pressed a hand to his throat to check for damage. "That was you?"

Blair raised his eyebrows at that and grinned. "Well, Simon helped. He was none too happy about it, either, but I had to, Jim. All that techno-trash was holding you down, keeping you off-line. Too much input equals no output for a sentinel, you know? It was a gamble, but--"

"You...you came in here and performed an illegal medical procedure on me while I was lying here helpless?"

"Hey," Blair said, indignant. "I'd seen it done."

"Help me up," Jim ordered, his voice gaining strength. He grinned. He felt pretty good for a guy fresh out of the vegetable garden. "I can't believe you did that."

"Normally, I'd say you shouldn't get up, you know, because you really need to be in the hospital, Jim, but right now I think getting us both out of here has a fairly high priority. Simon's can't hold 'em off forever."

"I feel fine," Jim said. "Throat hurts a little. Get me some water, would you? Dr. Sandburg?"

"Jim, you were dying." Blair's eyes met his, calm and unapologetic. "I would have done anything -- anything -- to prevent that. And I knew it would work. I knew what you needed. Even Simon could see that."

Jim's smile faded. The spin on those words was unmistakable. "You knew."

Blair nodded slowly, his gaze slipping away.

"_How_ did you know?"

"I think there's a strong possibility that your Deanna Troi theory is panning out."

"I thought you hated that theory."

Blair frowned. "I do," he said. "I'm just...not prepared to summarily discount the fact that... I mean, that we--"

"That you died because you were working your empathy too hard, and I dove into a terminal zone-out because you were dead?" Jim's interruption was blunt and pointed, completely certain. Blair might not get what had happened back there, but Jim was perfectly clear on the cause and effect issue.

"Oh, man." Blair's voice was almost a groan; his face was white, stricken. "I'm not ready for this conversation, Jim. I need to process--"

"Hey." Jim's eyes took in the strain around Blair's mouth, the sudden pallor of his tanned skin. He hadn't meant to say anything, but hearing Blair dance around the truth like that just brought out the worst in him. Tact wasn't his strong suit. Blair knew that, but.... "Sorry. We'll talk about it when we get home." Jim stood up, keeping his back to the wall. "You going to hand me that robe, or were you hoping for a thrill?"

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


"Look," Simon said to the nurse, trying hard to remain calm. She'd been angling to get past him for the past five minutes, and he was running out of patience. "Ms. Lindsey--"

"I have a patient in trouble in that room, Captain Banks!" she said. She was furious, the lines around her mouth pinched, her eyes narrowed. "You can move, or I can have security move you, but my team and I are going into that room right now."

"This is an official police matter. I can't allow you to interfere. I'm sorry, but I can't explain further. If you'll just relax, I can assure you the Cascade PD will have this all in hand in just a few--"

"Remove him," she said, and took a step back.

Two men - boys, really, didn't even look like they were shaving yet. They bracketed Simon, nervous as cats in a room full of rocking chairs. "You'll have to move aside now, sir." The one on the right had his hand on his nightstick. Probably more scared of using it than he was of Simon shooting him.

Simon didn't intend to shoot him. But he had at least a foot on both kids, and when he folded his arms across his chest they each took a wary step back. This wasn't gonna look good on his resume. He pressed himself back against the door and tensed his knees. He didn't want to hit anybody, but hell. He'd made a promise.

Fate, and Blair Sandburg, intervened to relieve him of that particular worry.

The door to room 324 opened behind him and emitted a man entirely unlike the one he'd left in there just minutes before. The sudden absence of anything to back him up nearly sent Simon toppling, but Sandburg was right there to steady him, just in time. The shambling, shaken kid who'd barely made it into Jim's room looked like he'd just come off of a seven-course meal and a week's vacation. There was just something wrong with anybody over twelve having that much energy.

Still, Simon's breath came a little more freely as his eyes met Sandburg's. Jim was back. There was no way Sandburg could look that pleased with himself otherwise.

"Yo, Simon! You ready to go? Jim's just about dressed -- Hey! Holly!"

Simon stared as Sandburg bounded over to the doctor and wrapped her in a bear hug. "Whoa! I haven't seen you in ages, where've you been?" he said, laughing as he pulled back.

"Right here," she said, her lips twisting into a frown as she pushed him away.

"Jesus, Sandburg," Simon said. "Is there anybody in Cascade you don't know?"

Sandburg rolled his eyes. "Not on the staff at Cascade County General," he said. "Holly and I go way back. Without her, I never would've hooked up with Jim. Holly, I had no idea you were still working here!"

"I am, no thanks to you."

"Hey, look, I--"

Holly moved forward into Sandburg's space, staring him down. "Are you practicing medicine again, _Dr. McKay_?"

Sandburg took a step back; Simon didn't blame him. "Listen, Holly, Jim is fine. He's getting dressed right now. There's no need--"

"I'll make that determination, thank you."

"I meant to call...."

"You didn't. And now you've broken into yet another patient's room."

Sandburg cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Well, no, same one actually--"

"Mr. Sandburg," she said tightly. "Get the hell out of my way."

"Whoa!" Sandburg moved to Simon's side to help block the door. "Not a good plan. You can't--"

"Oh, really? Watch me." She pushed between the two men and through the door to Jim's room.

Simon looked down at Sandburg and watched the kid's eyebrows climb. A moment later there came a startled exclamation from inside the room, mingled with a gasp of horror. Simon looked at Sandburg, a dark suspicion rising in his heart. "Until what?"

Sandburg grinned widely, leaning back against the wall. "Until Jim's dressed."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Crisp winds carried traces of a light, misty rain under the covered walkway as the hospital doors slid open and released Blair, along with Jim and two rather disgruntled orderlies, into the cold greyness of early morning. Blair closed his eyes and filled his lungs with the chill air as they waited for Simon to bring the truck around, not even minding the sting of the rain against his cheeks. It was cold, yeah, but at least he was around to feel it.

He and Jim both were. Blair looked up and found Jim's eyes on his, intent. There wasn't a trace of a smile on the detective's face as he rose from the wheelchair that had been forced on him and zipped his jacket against the cold. Jim had that measuring look, and Blair wondered what it was this time. His heart rate? Temperature? Hell, maybe it was his aura. Blair didn't know, and Jim wasn't talking. Probably afraid Blair would try to find a way around whatever it was the sentinel was using on him.

"Take a picture, Sandburg." Jim's eyebrows climbed as Blair continued to watch him.

"You're one to talk." He knew Jim would hear it, but didn't really care. Detective Jim Ellison, Hero-at-Large, rescues and lectures a specialty, harassment no extra charge. Blair rolled his eyes as he was lifted bodily from his wheelchair into the waiting Expedition by an orderly who looked like a cross between King Kong and Ghengis Khan. He hoped the man had a lot of inner beauty, because his outer form was the stuff of nightmares -- all hair and muscle and big white teeth.

Jim hovered over the entire operation with watchful eyes until the orderly retreated, taking the wheelchair with him. He wore an expression of deep, somewhat reproachful concern, as if he himself hadn't been on oxygen not twenty minutes ago. The nerve of the man was astounding.

"Jim, cut it out," Blair said finally, mustering what he hoped was a commanding tone. "Man, you are driving me nuts!"

"I'm driving you home, Chief." Jim leaned into the truck to make sure Blair's seat belt was securely fastened, tugging on the shoulder strap experimentally to see if it would catch. "You're lucky I didn't make them keep you here overnight."

"'Make' them? Yeah. Like the two of us checking out AMA didn't come within an inch of getting us declared incompetent." Holly Lindsey had not been pleased with either of them -- totally offended by their sudden recovery and subsequent refusal to be prodded like lab rats to determine the cause.

"It's not too late for you." Jim yanked at a strand of hair next to Blair's face as he drew back and surveyed his handiwork. "I could call them back."

"Oh, no. If I stay, we both stay."

Jim circled around the truck and found the captain waiting for him with the back door open. Neither man moved as their eyes locked in an amusing, if somewhat predictable, contest of wills. It was confrontation time again in alpha-male-land; Blair hunched down in his seat a little so he could see the two of them through the driver's side window.

"In the back, Ellison." Simon pulled a cigar out of the case in his jacket pocket and unwrapped it carefully, smiling as Jim's glare darkened. "You're both walking wounded, and there's no way I'm letting either of you drive. I'll have your license first."

"Come on, now, Simon, I'm perfectly--"

Simon's smile abruptly vanished, replaced by a look Blair knew all too well. He had to smother his own grin as the captain's patented Mask of Authority settled into place, complete with the solid clench of square white teeth around the end of his cigar. "In the back, Ellison."

This time his tone brooked no argument, and Jim's jaw tightened. That meant trouble most of the time, but Blair's money was on Simon; Jim had too much military in his past to fight a superior officer on something so trivial.

Too much respect for Simon, too. It was a shame there wasn't anyone around to take the bet.

"I hope you don't think you're lighting that." Jim climbed into the back seat of his own truck. Blair didn't have to be a sentinel to hear Jim's barely-muted grumbling as he belted himself in, and he certainly didn't have to be an empath to pick up on Simon's smug enjoyment of the entire affair. A large part of that, Blair had to assume, came from knowing the partners were feeling okay enough -- feeling, in fact, conscious and alive enough -- to gripe in the first place. That was cool, and Blair could run with it. If Simon needed to hear them snipe to feel like everything was back on track -- well, living with Jim Ellison, you got a lot of practice. Blair played it up on the way home, casting dark looks Simon's way whenever the truck hit a bump and muttering grimly about the idiotic driving habits of cops.

"Give it a rest, Sandburg," Jim said finally as they pulled into the parking garage. "If bitching were an Olympic sport--"

"Yeah, yeah." Blair jumped out almost as soon as the truck stopped moving. His voice echoed loudly in the pre-dawn stillness of the garage. The place was full of cars, but empty of people; most of the city was still in bed, which was suddenly where Blair wanted to be, too. He felt good, but it was the kind of goodness that made you think of clean sheets and warm blankets, and exactly how nice your pillow was going to feel right before you drifted off into pleasant dreams. A shower wouldn't be a bad idea, either. "Geez, quit hovering! What, are you gonna carry me upstairs and tuck me in?"

Jim had come around to help Blair out of the car; now he took a step back. Blair sighed and reached out a hand. "Sorry, man." He tugged at the sleeve of Jim's jacket. The gesture startled Jim out of his withdrawal, and Blair relaxed a little. "I'm just as worried about you," he said. "But we're both fine." He gentled his voice and bounced a little on the balls of his feet to illustrate his overall well-being. "Crisis averted, problem solved, we're both absolutely one hundred percent--"

"Insane," Simon cut in. "If you ladies are finished with each other, I'm going home."

"How're you...." Jim's question trailed off as a dark blue squad car pulled into the garage, roof and windshield dotted with evidence of heavier rain. "Ah."

"Rank hath its privileges." Smiling, Simon handed Jim the keys to the Expedition. "I don't want to see either of you until Monday morning."

"Simon, that's--"

"Jim, I don't want to hear it. If you show up at the station, you'd better be ready to hand over your badge and your gun. Got it?"

He didn't like it, but he got it. Blair had seen that look too many times to mistake it for anything but what it was: a volatile mix of temporary surrender and utter determination to go his own way.

Apparently Simon had seen it, too, because he fixed Blair with a commanding glare that left no room for misunderstanding. "He leaves the loft, and I'll have _your_ ass, Sandburg."

Blair glanced over at Jim, but found no help there. His eyes returned to the captain's. "Sure, Simon." He swallowed a rather obvious response having to do with his own size and Jim's stubbornness. "Whatever you say."

The glare fell away suddenly, as if it had never been, and Simon smiled widely at both of them. "I trust I've made myself clear, gentleman? Good. I'll see you Monday morning." Without another word, he ducked into the passenger seat of the squad car and delivered a jaunty wave as it cruised away.

"That went pretty well." Blair looked up at Jim with a hopeful smile. Maybe Jim wouldn't want to go anywhere. Maybe, just this once, Jim would do something for his own good.

"If Simon calls, I'm in the shower." Jim's eyes were flat with determination. "Get some rest, Chief. Don't wait up."

"Oh, no." Blair moved fast, putting himself between Jim and the driver's side door. The metal was cold and a little wet; he shivered, but didn't budge. His heart sped up a little; adrenaline, not fear, but it gave him an edge he needed. "You're not going anywhere until we talk about this."

"Get out of my way, Sandburg." Jim moved to the right, but Blair was quicker; he sidestepped, putting both hands in the center of Jim's chest to counter the larger man's forward momentum.

"Uh-uh. No. Sorry, Jim. Too much has happened here for us to just ignore it, man. We have got to figure this thing out before it happens again."

Jim took a step forward, his lips pressed into a thin white line. Blair didn't buy it for an instant. He let his hand fall casually, almost negligently, and folded his arms across his chest. He waited, letting the silence speak for him. Jim wasn't going to lay a finger on him. As soon as he figured out Blair knew that as well as Jim did, they might be able to have a reasonable conversation.

Jim looked everywhere but at him, not trying to get around him anymore, but not backing down, either. Blair's eyes narrowed. "You're not trying to get back to the investigation," he said as the truth suddenly dawned on him. Jim's eyes snapped down to his with an unexpected intensity, surprise mixed with fear.

Blair nodded at the unspoken question, knowing he was right. Hating that he was right, and a little afraid himself of the implications. He tugged at the sides of his flannel shirt, pulling it closed over his chest. Suddenly, the air felt colder.

"You're trying to get away from me."

Jim looked away. It was all the answer Blair needed.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


The loft was almost claustrophobically warm after the chill of the garage. Blair spent most of the cold season slightly chilled, and lately, Jim had taken to turning the heat up and his tactile sense down, more than a little pleased with himself at the newly-acquired control. Problem was, there was a happy medium between 'icehouse' and 'crematorium,' and Jim...well, Jim had missed it. Blair didn't have the heart to tell him; the guy was trying to be accommodating, not exactly one of the top Ellison priorities, and the effort wasn't diminished by the outcome.

Blair stripped off his flannel shirt on the way past his bedroom, tossing it through the French doors and turning down the thermostat before continuing on to the bathroom. He braced his arms against the counter, leaned over the sink, and ran clear, cold water into the basin.

Then proceeded to ignore it, in favor of staring at his own reflection in the medicine cabinet's mirror. The blue eyes that stared back at him were the picture of calm, but his face was pale, his nostrils were flaring, and a thin sheen of sweat glistened on his high forehead, plastering wisps of hair against his clammy skin.

It wasn't a panic attack, but it was damn close. Closer than he'd been since David Lash.

"He's shutting me out." The words were sharp and cold in Blair's ears. And they were true. A part of him still couldn't believe it, couldn't grasp the fact that Jim Ellison was pushing him away. This wasn't anger talking, or hyperbole, or insecurity. This was truth. "What the hell am I supposed to do now?"

The Blair in the mirror didn't have any more answers than the one in front of it. In fact, as the minutes ticked by, he looked more and more like a man seriously close to freaking out.

Better him than me, Blair thought with dark amusement. The joke fell flat; he was his own tough room today, not a smile in the house. Even if he had managed one, Blair was fairly sure it would've been the kind of smile that made small children scream for their mothers.

The door to the loft opened.

"Sandburg!"

Blair's eyes snapped open. His heart raced in his chest as he met his own resigned gaze in the mirror. Reaching down, he scooped a handful of cold water and splashed it into his face, the bite of it clearing his head and hardening his resolve. He could do this. He could.

But it wasn't going to be any fun at all.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Jim forced himself into stillness, leaning against the counter in the kitchen and waiting with what he hoped would pass for patience. Blair came out of the bathroom with beads of water clinging to the hair around his face and glistening in the five-o'clock-yesterday shadow on his cheeks. He stopped on the other side of the kitchen island, staring across the stovetop, meeting Jim's gaze with calm eyes -- like he could wait forever if he had to, but damned if he was going to crack first.

Jim wasn't up to the waiting game today. "Most people take their clothes off before they shower, Sandburg."

"Careful, man, I just got out of the hospital. Don't wanna hurt myself laughing."

Jim flinched, but said nothing, letting the silence spin itself out between them. He listened to Blair's breathing. Anchored himself to it, really, just like he'd done the second he came awake to a low, constant, not-quite-rational voice and the surreal understanding that it belonged to Blair Sandburg.

Who had been, the last time Jim had checked -- and not coincidentally, right before Jim himself had nearly checked _out_ \-- dead. And who'd had a serious problem with talking the whole thing out no more an hour ago. Now all the sudden it was time to share? Sandburg was fucking bipolar.

Not that Jim had a lot of room to talk. No more than an hour ago, he'd been up for a talk about Blair's new tricks. Neither of them were doing so great in the predictability department right now, so Jim wasn't in any position to point fingers. He was starting to seriously miss his own sense of equilibrium, because whatever it was that had happened to them at Henry Brown's place, whatever had caused Blair's...attack...it felt like it could happen again. Like maybe it was going to keep on happening, over and over again, until one or both of them really was dead. Blair just didn't get it; this empathy business had nearly killed him, and now he wanted to chat about it. Examine it. Dissect it, for God's sake. It wouldn't surprise Jim in the slightest to find Blair had a few tests he wanted to run.

That wasn't going to fly. The empathy thing was over. Anything that put Blair at that kind of risk was over. Jim didn't care how far he had to take it, he didn't care if he had to handcuff Blair to the radiator until he saw reason. They could talk about it until they were blue in the face, they could analyze it from every possible angle, but Blair was not using it again. Not on the Browns, not on Jim, not on anybody.

Not if Jim had anything to say about it.

There was going to be venting, probably a lot of it. Jim was ready to sit quietly through the worst of it, waiting for the storm to pass, then speak calmly and gently and rationally until...well, until Blair agreed to do things Jim's way, basically. He was big enough to admit that. The safe, sane way.

Instead, Blair paced.

"You're gonna wear a groove in the floor."

Blair stopped in his tracks and turned to Jim, his eyes narrowed with an emotion Jim read as one part panic and four parts pissed off. His hands were already in motion, even before there were words to emphasize. "I thought we were past this!" he said. "I thought this was yesterday's news. How many times do I have to remind you that you don't just ditch your back-up? Damn it, we're partners. You're a cop, man, you're supposed to understand that, but every time things heat up, you shut me out. Every single time--"

Jim's shook his head quickly, instant denial, feeling the strained pull of suddenly tense muscles. "Sandburg, you don't under--"

"No, man, you don't understand." Blair's voice rang loud, too loud in the stillness, and echoed off the loft's brick walls. Jim had been monitoring Blair's silence with his hearing; he tightened his lips as he tried to ease back down to normal levels. It wasn't too bad yet; there wasn't a lot of pain, but he could feel a gathering tension at the base of his skull that throbbed a distant, early warning of the migraine to come.

Jim closed his eyes and tilted his head back, trying to loosen the steadily tightening knots in his neck. Two years had honed trust into a reflex, and he relaxed immediately when strong, square hands closed on his shoulders.

"Sorry, Jim, geez...I'm here." Angry words, thick with guilt. _My fault,_ Jim wanted to say, _I forgot to turn it down, you said always turn it down if I don't need it and I didn't listen._ But that made him wonder if maybe he should have listened closer in the garage, and that made him think of what had just happened to them a few hours ago, and that train of thought had to be derailed before it took him to that place on the lawn outside the Brown's where Blair was dead.

Just that fast, he was there. Lost in that darkness, invaded by it. Fucking hell, he couldn't see a thing, one step too many down memory lane and he was--

Blind.

"Blair!"

Strong hands on his, soft voice in his ears, and something else: a rhythm beneath his palm, steady and familiar. His hands were pressed over Blair's heart; the fabric of Blair's T-shirt rough under his fingertips. Jim focused on the sensation. He closed his eyes, or thought he did, to normalize the darkness. It was okay for it to be dark if your eyes were closed; that was the way things worked. Blair's voice reached into the darkness, joined him there, and eased away the panic.

"I can't see," Jim said in a rush, giving up information and responsibility in the same breath.

"Yes, you can." No fear in Blair's voice, no trace of worry, just easy, quiet certainty. "You just forgot how for a second. We're going to reconnect it, okay? Now, you can feel how I'm breathing, right? Breathe with me, slow it down."

Sandburg to the rescue. Even mad as hell, Sandburg took care of Jim first.

"Ease it down, Jim." The voice was a repentant whisper, soft against painfully sensitive eardrums. "Open your eyes." Jim did as he was told, placing himself in Blair's control with an ease that bordered on instinct.

"What do you see?"

"Nothing. Grey...just nothing."

"Look, Jim. You remember what I look like. Look for me. The shirt under your hand is green, dark green. Remember the trick we did with your hearing a few months ago? Sound to sight. This is just the same. Put them together."

It happened as easily as that, and as fast. A rush of color filled a moment of touch, rough cotton and vivid green almost the same sensation for a flash of time...and then the world was back, in screaming, blinding, polychromatic intensity. Jim jerked away, squinting, hands coming up to protect his eyes as pain knifed through his skull.

Blair didn't let go, but he did let Jim cover his eyes. Hands still closed around Jim's wrists, Blair kept talking, shifting gears instantly. "Okay, sight's back on-line, obviously, but it hurts like hell, huh? Okay, we can get through this. Keep your hands where they are, Jim, and open your eyes slowly. Just a little at a time, ease them open. Should be fairly dim back there, but you can see your hands, right?"

Jim wanted to answer, but he couldn't. He was looking at his palm, at the intricate tracery of ridges and valleys, deep creases cutting through them, deeper, closer, the sound of Blair's voice just a distant memory as he escaped from pain into discovery. Into miniature, into depth, until he could almost imagine what he was seeing were cells, individual cells throbbing with his own life force, and nothing hurt now, the pain was gone, the agony gone, lost in sight....

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


_Zone-out. Oh, man. What else can we fuck up? He overloads on sound, loses his sight, overloads on sight, then zones? Like nearly dying in a coma wasn't rough enough on the guy for one day? Come on...._

Blair wasn't sure if he was praying, or just giving Fate one hell of a lecture. Whatever worked. And something had to work, and fast, because he didn't know if he could hold it together with Jim flashing from bad to worse and three more senses to go. He didn't even want to think about what else could go wrong, so he pushed it away, and focused on Jim.

Voice wasn't working anymore. Touch wasn't working. Sight was what he was zoned on, and Blair had never been able to pull him out with smell or taste. Either one was as likely to send Jim from one zone right into another, and Blair was not about to risk that, not with his partner flipping out on something new every minute.

Which left no way to get through to Jim, which left them in very, very deep trouble.

_Breathe, Sandburg. Panic isn't going to help Jim._ The problem was, nothing in his admittedly limited arsenal of quick-fixes had helped Jim.

Except the one thing he hadn't tried.

Blair closed his eyes. So much for not panicking. The one thing he hadn't tried was also the one thing he didn't believe in, and even if he did believe in it, he had no idea how to use it. Or what would happen when he used it. According to Jim, he did it all the time, without even thinking about it. The headaches came from that.

According to Jim.

_So there it is, Blair, the real question, the one you haven't asked yet. Jim says it's real, and you say you trust Jim, so what's the problem here?_

The answer wasn't far behind. It wasn't that he didn't believe in it; he did trust Jim, completely, and if Jim said he had some kind of empathic gift, Blair was ready and willing to put money on it. The problem was that it scared him, scared him so deep he couldn't even stand to think about it. Jim being special was cool; that was the way things were supposed to be. Jim being the sentinel, Blair being the guy who'd found him.

This took things to a different level. This bound them together as equals, and as much as Blair claimed to think they already were...it changed things. It changed him.

_And it helps other people, Sandburg, and it helps Jim, so shut up and do whatever it is you have to do to make it work. The headaches are the key here. What happens right before the headaches?_

Jim was breathing evenly, if a little slowly, and his pulse was strong. Blair let go of him and stepped away.

Centered himself.

Breathed.

And took himself back.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


In the end, it was as easy as dreaming. Blair thought maybe it was something like dreaming, because really, nothing so monumental, so unbelievably powerful, could be a part of reality as he understood it.

He stood there, alone with his best friend in the world, just this guy in torn jeans and a green T-shirt who'd had a little time on his hands one day back in high school and decided, in a fit of introspection, to become an anthropologist. It didn't seem possible that single moment in time had brought him to this one, but any other way of looking at it was a bit too out there even for Naomi Sandburg's son. Feline jungle spirits are theologically insupportable, after all, right? Or so Blair liked to tell himself when the whole shaman rap got a little too weird for words.

Like, say, now.

But now he needed that weirdness, and when he cast his mind back to find a trace of it, a clue, a bit of evidence in Major Crime terminology, it was there for him. Shining like a beacon, waiting there, just in case he got brave and decided to look. Optimistic little talent, this one, counting on him like that.

But then again, there he was, tracking it. So maybe a little optimism had been warranted.

There was a little push Blair gave when he needed to help somebody. Nothing major, nothing violent, nothing he'd write about in his journal. Just...looking a little harder than usual for a solution, maybe, to whatever problem had presented itself. It hurt sometimes. Once in a while, it was like banging his head against a door to open it. Other times it was like looking through a clouded window, or maybe a pane of ice. He had to strain to see what was on the other side, and sometimes if he strained too long, a deep throbbing started between and behind his eyes. An ache that grew into a pain that grew into a headache that had him flat on his back for hours in the dark of his room, with the blinds drawn, and maybe a pillow over his face just in case the pain didn't kill him.

But so what if there was pain. It was worth it for that moment of seeing what to do, what to say, how to break down the barriers. It was worth it even for people who weren't Jim Ellison, people who had that particular misfortune. It wasn't that they were lesser people, or anything like that. He was sure they led fulfilling lives, but in Blair's particular solar system, Jim was the sun and everybody else was just a planet. Nothing wrong with being a planet, but a planet wasn't the source. That was Jim, and Jim needed help, and it was about time Blair offered it instead of standing there like an idiot making up silly, sentimental metaphors for something that just was, and was all it needed to be, even sans the melodrama.

So Blair did it, he gave that push, and it didn't even require any physical contact, which he kind of thought it should, until he reflected he'd probably just watched a little too much Star Trek in his youth. And it wasn't like looking through a pane of ice, or banging his head against a door, not with Jim. With Jim, it was like turning the knob and pulling the door open, walking through to find an entirely different world on the other side. Strange, but familiar.

If Jim was Blair's source, this was Jim's. Blair instinctively pulled away from it, careful, almost reverent. The same part of him that knew he could reach out and mold what he found there also knew, soul deep, that he shouldn't. That such a thing would be a greater wrong than his heart could encompass, would destroy him. Both of them.

Instead, he called to it. Without words. And without words, Jim answered.

Followed him back, just like always. The method differed, but the path was the same.

Blair opened his eyes and saw Jim looking at him. He smiled, reaching out to clasp Jim's shoulder, feeling drained but strong. Stronger than he'd ever been. Everything looked brighter: the green of the walls, the gleam of the countertops, the deep glow of the wooden cabinet doors. _I'm having a sentinel moment,_ Blair thought, a little giddy, smiling like an idiot. _Oh, man, this better not be contagious._

"You with me yet, Jim?" he said, voice just a little low.

Jim's eyelids sagged, closing. "I'm...."

"Still out there." Blair's voice went lower as he spoke, and he smiled, relaxed. Calm. He could do this. He could do this easy.

"Keep your eyes open, okay? Good. Now focus on something visual...."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


"Look at...look at my eyes. What color are they?"

"Blue."

"Okay, good. Concentrate, breathe deeply, and count the striations in the blue."

Jim smiled a little in spite of the pain and the mental fog between his thoughts. "How romantic."

"Funny." Half a grin turned up one corner of Blair's mouth. "I'm trying to help here. Pay attention. Now, I want you to ignore your ears, okay?" Something deep in Jim's chest awoke to that tone, responding with utter, silent attention. "Just pretend you don't have any. You'll still hear my voice, but just as a whisper. Just ease off on the throttle."

Jim did as he was told. Blair spoke, and Jim listened, and slowly...slowly, the haze lifted. Long moments ticked by as Jim returned to himself, to slightly dulled but manageable senses. He wondered idly how long he'd been gone; Blair's eyes were wide with concern -- unnecessary concern. Jim felt strong, almost rested. If a zone-out was like a trance, as Blair seemed to believe, then maybe it was just what the doctor ordered.

Now if he could just get Blair to zone him out, and then tell him he'd had a full night's -- ah, the hell with it, this was fantasy here -- a full week's sleep....that would cure just about anything.

With practiced ease, at Blair's command, Jim brought his senses back up to what passed for normal for a sentinel. When he could hear his partner's breathing without pain, and see the individual specks of dust on the books across the room without hurting his eyes, and feel the vibrations of Blair's voice against his cheeks without flinching.... When he could smell the fettuccini Alfredo they'd made last week beneath the lemon-scented detergent on the pans under the stove... and taste the subtle tang of that detergent in the air.... When everything was back as it belonged, Jim let himself relax.

It was easy when Blair talked him through it. He couldn't do it by himself, but Blair made it work.

But in spite of the almost reflexive gratitude, knowing _how_ Blair made it work made Jim frown and pull away.

"Jim?"

He shook his head quickly to clear away the last of the cobwebs, then crossed to the refrigerator and pulled a cold bottle of water off the top shelf. The chill blast of air through the open door made him shiver. Just when Jim got the loft comfortable, Blair came along and messed with the thermostat. He would've thought somebody so cold-natured would like the place a little warmer. Frowning, Jim shut the fridge quickly, stripped the plastic off the sports cap, and took a long, slow pull on the bottle. The cool water seemed to chase out the last of his body heat, but at least it eased the knot in his throat.

"It's over," Jim said. "I'm fine."

"That's great!" Blair opened the fridge and grabbed some water for himself. "Listen, Jim, I have to tell you, you were right." He leaned on the door, eyes wide with excitement, stark and bright against the pallor of his face. Beneath the green of his T-shirt, Jim could see the outline of his ribs. For just a moment, Jim wasn't listening to him; instead, he was wondering when that had happened, when the softness had burned away. Somewhere along the line Blair had turned hard and lean. Jim looked away.

"I was right," he said absently. "What was I right about?"

"I didn't buy it, you know, I thought, well, to be honest, Jim, I was pretty sure you just needed to get some more down time, right? But--"

"We have a problem with the air conditioner, Chief?" Jim cocked his head toward the refrigerator, eyebrows raised, before heading for the couch.

"So you were zoned, right?" Blair pushed the door closed and followed Jim into the living room. "And I'd tried everything, nothing was working, and I was seriously close to flipping out. Then I flashed on everything you'd said." Blair climbed over the back of the couch and sat down on the arm, facing Jim with his elbows on his knees. "Man, it was like lightning, I can't even describe it. I didn't know what to do at first, but then I thought about the headaches, and how you said it was the whole empathy gig that brought them on? So I just did what I did before the headaches hit, and Jim?" Blair grinned. "It worked!"

Jim hadn't thought it could get any colder in the loft, but that did the trick. He was having trouble catching his breath. His hand gripped the water bottle so tightly the plastic buckled, the sound snapping loud in the silence left after Blair's awestruck statement.

"Jim?"

"You did...what?"

"I can't explain it." Blair bounced off of the arm of the couch and onto the cushions, twisting his legs into a lotus position and gesturing with both hands. "It's just...it was wild, Jim. And it was so different! It's not what I do the rest of the time, or it didn't seem that way once I remembered what it was that I did, but there it was, it just worked. It came together. And now I just feel...I feel...."

"Like an idiot?" Jim could feel himself losing it, flushing red with anger, but he was too far gone to care. "Like a guy who just took an insane risk that could've killed him? Like maybe you forgot to turn your brain back on when you woke up -- sorry, came back to life after four minutes of being dead -- in the hospital just a few hours ago? Which one of those perfectly justifiable emotions are you feeling right now, Blair? Let's explore this," he said. "Let's _process_."

"Whoa, Jim." Blair jerked back as if Jim had hit him. "What the hell--"

"Did it occur to you," Jim said very, very quietly, "that the last time you used this...thing ...you ended up dead? As in, totally free of life-signs? Did that escape you somehow? Because if you had that in mind when you did this...." Jim stopped. His voice was rising. Lowering it, he took a deep breath and continued. "If you had that in mind when you did this, I have to seriously wonder if you went too long without oxygen."

Blair blinked at him rapidly, like he didn't get it, like he was failing to understand what Jim was getting at. Jim could see him floundering, trying to explain and understand at the same time, that quick mind running a little too fast for multi-tasking to do anything but confuse the issue.

"You were zoning," Blair said finally, as if that would somehow clarify things for both of them. As if that justified any number of insanities.

"Yeah? Well, the last time I checked that's what the whole talking routine was for, right? If that's changed now, I missed the memo."

Blair's eyes narrowed. "Chill with the attitude, Jim. You needed help, I helped. As I recall, that's my job. That's what I'm here for."

"Next time I need that kind of help, Sandburg, you don't go playing with fire. You call the hospital, or--"

"Yeah, they did great last night, didn't they? Much more of that kind of help and you'd be so vegged out, I'd have to take up gardening. Geez, Jim. What's a doctor going to do for you that they didn't already try last night?" Blair's hands flew as he spoke, his water bottle forgotten, just another part of the gestures as drops splashed out of the open cap. "And look, nothing happened! I'm fine. Better than fine, I feel great, I am so pumped, Jim, it was amazing! Before this started, I was feeling okay, but I was tired, and my back hurt a little from the fact that you got no shocks in that tank of yours, but now--"

Jim shook his head while Blair rattled on about how wonderful it all was. Sometimes the proximity of death absolutely terrified Blair; coming out of that elevator after the whole Galileo affair, he'd been shaking like a leaf. He'd taken the stairs for weeks. Other times, though, it was like being close to the edge was some kind of a turn-on. Like when he'd made a date with a Fed after getting shot in the leg, or that time his car had been shot up in the street and he hadn't come down for a week.

Or like now, when he'd just done one of the most arrogant, idiotic, brainless--

The phone spared Jim the search for bigger and better synonyms. He grabbed it just before Sandburg could get to it, glaring balefully at his partner before flipping it open. "Ellison," he snapped, ready to fight with whoever was at the end of the line. It couldn't help but be more productive than fighting with Sandburg.

"Turn on the TV."

"Fine, thanks, Simon, how're you?"

"Channel four."

"Blair's fine, too."

"Now, Ellison."

Jim sighed, tucked the phone under his chin, and gestured vaguely toward the coffee table. Blair stood up and leaned toward it, his hand hovering as he looked at Jim with a raised eyebrow. "Yeah--no, not the National Geographic, the remote, on top of the Geog---yeah. Thanks."

"Right."

Jim hit the power button and winced as the Sci-fi channel theme music blared from the set. He glared at Sandburg as he thumbed the volume down, but all he got was an impatient, shrugged apology. Sandburg tucked his fingers into his pockets, eyes never leaving Jim's.

"Four? KCDE?"

"Yeah," Simon said. "No rush, you won't miss it. They'll be on this for hours."

Jim rushed anyway, flipping through the channels until the dark eyes, dark hair, and oily smile of Don Hass filled the screen. Jim lowered the volume again, ignoring the irritated look aimed his way when the newscaster's voice dropped close to the bottom Blair's auditory range. Hass' voice was annoying; Jim didn't need it booming around in his skull after the day he'd had.

"...are stunned by the unprecedented audacity of the kidnapping. The identity of the victim has not yet been confirmed, but sources close to the Cascade Police Department indicate that this could be yet another in the long string of unsolved murders attributed to a serial killer known to the public only as 'the Blade.' Detective James Ellison, head of the task force assigned to the case until he and his partner, Dr. Blair Sandburg of Rainier University, were hospitalized for unknown reasons late last night, could not be reached for comment..."

Jim's jaw clenched. He closed his eyes and forced himself to relax -- physically, at any rate. His mind was another story.

"I see Blair got his doctorate," he said into the phone's receiver, stalling for time as he assimilated the facts. Another murder. Another kid gone.

"I wouldn't have called, Jim, but I knew one of you would see it sooner or later. and I wanted you to hear this from me."

"Who is it, Simon?"

Blair's hand came down on Jim's shoulder. It was a comfort until he remembered what Blair was doing. He shrugged the hand off, glaring up into hurt blue eyes.

Nothing for it. Better Blair's ego slightly damaged than his brain. Blair moved away from Jim, hands back in the pockets of his faded jeans, shoulders hunched against the still, cold air.

_I'm putting a lockbox on the thermostat,_ Jim thought inanely, waiting through the long quiet at the end of the line.

When Simon's voice broke it, Jim missed the silence.

"It's Jamie Brown," Simon said finally, softly. "He came back for her, Jim. The bastard came back."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


God, there were just some days it was good to be alive.

It had been days -- weeks, maybe -- since the sun had shone like this. Welcome to late fall in Cascade. Rain, and rain, and more rain...but then there would come a day like this, or maybe just an hour, when everything was bright, when the last rain had been a cleansing and left the sky that intense, crystal, ephemeral -- yeah, that was the word, ephemeral blue that made you think you were looking up at Heaven. Even the distant clouds were bright, dark at the center, but outlined in glowing silver.

The trees thrashed with wind, frenzied. Red-yellow-brown leaves whirled through the streets outside, dancing, easing down through intricate patterns. Perfect in motion, perfect at rest.

He took a deep breath and held it in, that breeze, that clear, sharp, crisp smell that had to be part ozone from the afternoon's thunderstorm. It felt good. He was expanded by the perfection of the sky, the scents, the clean, chill air against his cheeks.

Perfect faces, perfect souls. Alison, Isabelle, Emily, Anne. And Alaina, the first, the one they didn't know about, oh, she'd been good. She'd broken his heart with her beauty, and he'd loved it, reveled in it. Only that kind of perfection could kill you and make you stronger at the same time. He'd learned so much from her, gained so much from knowing her, having her in his life. If not for her, and the sanctity -- _purity_ \-- of her destruction, he never would have known there had to be others like her. He wouldn't have learned to look for them.

Alison, Isabelle, Emily, Anne. And now....

And now, Alisha. She was the One, the perfect one. The others had been close, but they hadn't been like Alaina.

Alisha was.

He closed the window, smiling, whistling softly to himself. There wasn't much time. Maybe there was no time. It was a chance he'd had to take. Later he could move her out to the cabin, but for now she waited in his very own house, in his very own bed. There was a secret thrill to it, an edge. And now she was awake.

He'd watched her face, still and open in unconsciousness, in the front seat of his uncle's truck. He'd hoped for just a glimpse of those dark eyes. Now they were open, large and deep, shining. He looked down at her, into her eyes, and smiled reassuringly. She didn't understand, and so of course, she was scared out of her mind. It hurt to know she didn't trust him, but that wouldn't last for long. He knew he could convince her, make her listen, make her see that all of -- all of this -- it was unpleasant, sure, but it was for the best. It was really just what was called for, just what was supposed to be.

"It's okay, Alisha," he whispered, leaning down to stroke her cheek. He brushed a gentle kiss against her forehead, wincing a little as she jerked away and banged her head against the wall. His eyes watered in sympathy with her pain, and he spoke softly, comforting her, shushing the quiet noises she made behind the gag.

"It's okay," he said again, "I'm here, I've got you." He lifted her easily into his arms, enfolding her, holding her close and rocking her as he stroked her hair. She trembled against him, shudders wracking her body as she twisted and tried to free herself. The nylon ropes at her wrists and ankles tore into her skin.

It was always like this at first, until they understood.

He settled her back against the mattress, brushing a lock of curling black hair away from her eyes. "You're perfect," he said quietly. "And it's gonna to be all right, Alisha, really. You believe me, don't you?"

He could see the struggle in her eyes, hope battling despair, and his smile widened. This was going to be easy.

He knelt next to the bed, knees aching slightly where they pressed into the cold wood floor. He took both of her bound hands into both of his, squeezing her fingers gently. He nodded to himself as her skin warmed against his, her blood flowing fast, just beneath the surface.

This was right. It was right, and he could do it, after all.

Whispering, watching her with a depth of compassion he knew she would come to love, he began to explain to her the way it all would happen.

When she started to scream against the gag and thrash on the mattress, he hit her until she stopped.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


"Oh, man, no. He got her at the hospital? She was under guard, Jim. Is she--" Blair swallowed, eyes flicking around the room as if the familiar surroundings might offer some easier way to finish his question.

"We have no way of knowing that. There was no body, no blood. Just a note." Jim shrugged into his heavy black leather jacket, turning up the collar against the cold. Blair watched with resignation, knowing what was coming.

"What'd the note say?" Any second now Jim would try to take off, sans partner. Ten minutes ago, the man had been kissing cousin to farm produce, and it'd taken an empathic epiphany to bring him back to the real world. Jim had to face the fact that when his mind wandered, it didn't always come back when called. Sometimes it had to be hunted down and dragged back, kicking and screaming -- and that was _Blair's_ job.

A job he had to be physically present to perform. "Jim? The note?"

Jim looked at Blair, his eyes hard and steady. "You're not coming."

"Like hell I'm not." Blair shifted gears instantly, grabbing his jacket from its hook on the wall and sliding it on. He didn't bother to grab another shirt for warmth; it would've been nice, but Jim wouldn't need more than a few seconds to bail. Blair dug his keys out of the basket by the door and dropped them into his jacket pocket, then tied his hair back as he started talking. "I'm trying to decide if this calls for I'm-your-partner lecture number twelve or fifteen. Twelve is like totally eloquent and convincing, but fifteen has the advantage of brevity and can be effectively yelled as I'm chasing you down the stairs. What do you think?"

Jim's lips twisted in annoyance, and his eyes rolled toward the ceiling. "It's not going to work this time, Chief. You're staying right here."

"You a betting man, Jim? 'Cause unless you plan to handcuff me to something, I'm going with you. It may have escaped your notice, but I own a car and I know how to drive, and I'm way familiar with the route to and from Cascade County General. Am I getting through? Small words, Jim. I'm. Going."

"Sandburg--"

"Jim, listen to me, okay? Henry is my friend, and Jamie was -- is -- starting to be, and there is no way you're shutting me out of this. I have a right, you know that." Blair looked away from Jim again, toward the windows. Outside, the sun was bright, all traces of the earlier rain washed away. God, it was so unfair. No one should be in fear or pain on a day like this. "I talked her into going to the hospital."

Jim let out an explosive breath, a wordless curse. A rough hand closed over Blair's shoulder and turned him, forcing eye contact. "Don't even start, Sandburg. You got her where she needed to be. None of this is your fault."

Blair brought a hand up to grab Jim's wrist, squeezing to emphasize every word. "You want to be telling me that for the next ten years? Because if Jamie Brown...." An image of bright blood splashed across shell-pink walls flashed through his mind, and Blair had to pause to gather himself. He swallowed hard, and his grip on Jim's wrist tightened. "If she's not okay, and I sat here waiting when I could've been helping you guys...you just better get used to saying it a lot, Jim, because there is no way you'll ever convince me. Am I making my point, here? I need to be there. And whether you like it or not, I'm going to be there. The only question on the table is whether we're gonna carpool."

Jim took a deep breath, as if to continue the argument, but let it out in a rush and shook his head. "It's like talking to a wall," he muttered, just loud enough for Blair to catch it. His voice rose when he continued, but Blair was already relaxing. Over the past two years, his sensitivity to Jim's caving had been heightened to almost sentinel levels. "All right, look. You can ride along, but you even look like you're about to do anything weird, and I will handcuff you to the steering wheel of my truck and leave you there. Got it?"

Blair nodded emphatically, carefully schooling any trace of victory from his expression. "I got it, Jim," he said, holding his hands up in surrender. He was ready to give in on just about anything, now that he'd won on the important stuff. "Whatever you say, man." _Unless you zone. In which case all bets are off._

Jim folded his arms across his chest and jerked his head toward Blair's bedroom. "And put on something heavier than that T-shirt," he ordered, scowling. "You just got out of the hospital."

"Got it, Jim." Blair ducked into his room for half a beat and returned with a black-and-white checked shirt. "Wanna check behind my ears? I scrubbed, man, I promise."

Jim's lips tightened. His eyes flicked toward the ceiling, and he muttered under his breath, pushing Blair out into the hallway.

"I missed that, Jim."

Jaw clenched, eyes on the floor, Jim's voice was almost a growl. "I said, I wish you didn't have to deal with any of this."

Blair reached up and squeezed Jim's shoulder, shaking him a little to get his full attention. "Jim...I'm okay. I can handle it."

"Good for you."

"I mean it, Jim. I'm a big boy now, you know?"

"Sure you are." Some of the tension had eased away, enough that Jim could smile. "But you still have to wear your seatbelt."

Blair shook his head and laughed. "No question, man; I'm smarter than I look. In fact," he added, climbing into the truck and strapping himself in as ordered, "I've been thinking about investing in a helmet...."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Simon stood back from the door of the hospital room that had been Jamie Brown's and tried not to look as if he were waiting for Jim Ellison. Hands on his hips held back the flaps of a brown trench coat, mandatory weather gear in late-fall Cascade, and a cigar hung, all but forgotten, from one corner of his mouth. Usually he found the taste of it calming, reassuring in a way that he was never going to explain to Blair Sandburg, no matter how much the kid bugged him about it.

Not today. Today it was just a prop, something everyone expected to see, so there it was. Just another part of the image, like gold-framed glasses, or a voice that could shake windows. His people needed the tags, the presence of someone who never changed, never faltered, and that's what he was going to give them.

Especially today, when he needed the illusion as much as they did.

He stood still, only the occasional twitch of the cigar revealing his impatience. He'd told Jim not to come, but the order was half-hearted, and in the end, completely disregarded. Not that he'd expected anything else; he just couldn't ask, not with what Jim had just been through. The order to stay home was as necessary to Simon as disobeying it was to Jim; they both understood it, but the proper forms had to be satisfied. He'd ordered Jim not to bring Sandburg, too, and that order he'd actually meant to be followed -- but since the world was still turning and gravity hadn't reversed itself, the kid would be two steps behind Ellison, if not a couple of steps ahead. When they were on a case, Jim couldn't pry Sandburg off of him with a crowbar.

In spite of himself, Simon was glad of that, too. Jim worked better with Sandburg around. There was more to it -- a lot more, apparently -- but the whole deal involved more weird Peruvian mysticism than any one police captain should ever have to absorb. Simon understood what he needed to understand and left the rest up to them. It was more than enough. Alone, Jim Ellison was an excellent detective; with Blair Sandburg at his side, he was damn near unstoppable.

And now, more than ever, Simon needed Jim at his best.

"Truck just pulled up."

Simon turned and found Brian Rafe right beside him. The man looked rough. The weight of the world was on his shoulders, and from the look in his eyes, it was heavy. Maybe too heavy.

Kind of like the responsibility of keeping Ellison's secret. "And?"

"And you've been waiting for them, and now they're here." Rafe stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked away. "Can they find her?"

Simon's teeth clenched tight around the butt of his cigar, the bitter taste of tobacco flooding his mouth. Rafe was primed, totally on alert. Unshaven, dark hair just barely combed, wearing yesterday's clothes under a brown leather jacket that had seen better days. Probably hadn't slept for a week.

If this was what had become of a friend of the family, Simon was glad he hadn't seen Henry Brown.  
There was a spark of knowledge in Rafe's eyes, speculation. Simon's stomach twisted into a painful knot as he prepared to snuff it out.

"Jim's the best." He was non-committal, deliberately not acknowledging the spark.

"You know what I'm asking."

"No," Simon said. "I don't. You have something you want to say?"

"Captain...." Rafe's hand stretched out -- then fell to his side again. "They can find her, right?"

Simon clapped a hand over Rafe's arm. "Jim's the best."

He waited, unflinching, until Rafe's shoulders fell, and the slightly dazed light of hope faded from his eyes. When Rafe turned away, Simon bit off a curse, self-disgust rising like bile in his chest.

He dropped the cigar, gnawed into utter uselessness, into the trashcan by the door as he walked out to meet his best team.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


"I thought you were leaving him at home," Simon said.

Jim met his eyes in a sideways glance, then let his gaze wander to where Blair stood talking to one of the uniformed men. He could've listened in, but after two years he could practically recite the list of questions from memory. Who had been in the room since they discovered the scene? Who had touched the bed? Who had bagged the evidence? How long had the scene been cold? What brand of baggies, for God's sake, had been used to store the note? Less than three weeks ago Blair had waged a silent war with Supply, stealing every single box of flimsy cellophane bags and buying out half the local supermarket's store of Ziploc freezer bags to replace them. The stronger material and tighter seal maintained the integrity of the sample, he insisted, and after a dizzying round of tests, Jim had to admit the kid was right. He could pick up more with his nose off of evidence bagged in Ziploc.

"I tried, sir," Jim said finally. "Five minutes of my life I'll never see again."

Simon shook his head, but Jim noticed he didn't look all that put out. "Just keep him out of my hair," he said. "I've got work to do."

"Sure, Simon. Whatever you say. What've we got so far?"

"Jamie hurt her wrist sometime last night; it was still bothering her this morning. Her doc ordered an X-ray."

"When did this happen? She didn't complain about any injuries last--"

"She told the doctor she didn't remember hurting it. Not surprising, after everything else she's been through. Anyway, the nurse who came to take away her breakfast dishes at about nine saw Jamie, her guard--"

"Peterson, right?"

"Yeah, Peterson, and an orderly wheeling Jamie down to X-ray. That's the last time anybody saw any of them."

"So how come nobody raised the alarm sooner, Simon? You didn't call me until noon."

"And we didn't _get_ the call until eleven-thirty. The press were here before we were." Simon sighed, utter disgust carved into the lines of his face. "Apparently the X-ray techs are backed up this morning. Everyone assumed Jamie was down there waiting in line. They didn't think anything of it until Rafe showed up to check on her and nobody knew where she was."

"So now we have not only a missing girl, but a missing orderly and a missing cop, too." Jim took a deep breath, trying to wrap his head around Simon's quick briefing. "Swell."

Simon nodded agreement and pulled a wrapped cigar out of one pocket. He fiddled with the cellophane, casual and calm. "You getting anything from the note?"

Jim shook his head and ran a thumb over the clear plastic and the white notepaper beneath it. "Waiting for Sandburg on this one, Simon. Too many people have been through here; it's going to take more concentration than usual to pick anything up, and I don't want to risk a zone-out." He closed his eyes and let the words run through his mind again, as clear in memory as they were on the page in his hands. "'Alison, Isabelle, Emily, Anne, Alisha,'" he quoted. "'Thank you for caring for Alisha.' What is it with this Alisha thing, Simon?"

Jim didn't really expect an answer, and he didn't get one -- from Simon, anyway. It was Blair's voice that replied, from across the room, sentinel-soft. "Someone from his past, maybe? Names can be charged with a lot of meaning, Jim. Maybe calling her Alisha is kind of like...sympathetic magic. Changing her from Jamie into someone else for him, someone he can deal with on a different level."

Jim stalked over to his partner, pulling him out into the hallway. How the hell--? "Sandburg?"

Blair grinned. "Cool. Now you know how weird it is when you do it. Relax, man; I was reading your lips, not your mind. Ever heard of adaptation?"

"Ever heard of being a smartass?"

"Now that would be an example of a name with negative connotations. Another would be...." Blair looked up at the ceiling, and Jim could almost see the gears moving as he searched for an example. "....okay. It would be like, wanting to go out with an Amber instead of an Ethel, or a Samantha instead of a Myrtle. It's all in the way it sounds, the way the words flow from our lips or ring in our ears, the images the sounds call to mind."

"That's kind of shallow, Sandburg."

"Oh, yeah." Blair nodded rapidly, eyes widening. "Totally, Jim. And believe me, if Ethel looks like an Amber, I'm still going to want her number. I'm shallow on, like, a completely different level. The point is, being named Ethel is something a person has to rise above. All these names, though, have positive associations."

"Country club names."

"Yes! Exactly."

"No, not exactly. It doesn't make sense. One of the girls was named Tiffany. You don't get any more upscale than that. Why change it?"

"If I knew everything, Jim, I'd hang out with a better class of people."

Jim looked up from the note, grinning. "Lucky them."

"Oh, now that's harsh, man. That's-- Jim? What--?"

"Do you smell that?" Jim raised a hand for quiet and tilted his head to one side. Blair took a step closer and put a hand on Jim's arm, all Joe Casual. Just two partners shooting the breeze, only one of them was a sentinel, and the other was Blair Sandburg, who was even now looking at him with thinly disguised impatience, fingers twitching like they itched for a pen and a notebook.

They probably did.

"C'mon, Jim, focus."

_Focus, sure, let me just tune out these fifty million people around us and I'll get right on it._ "I'm just spinning my wheels here, Sandburg. I can't find the scent. It was like alcohol...but not. Something chemical."

"Well, see? You've got your opening. We've done this before, man." Blair raised his eyebrows. "It's a new world for you every day, isn't it."

Jim glared and pushed Blair back. "Out of my space, chief. You smell like cheap aftershave."

"Not so much of the cheap, man. Now, think. How was it not like alcohol?"

"It was sweeter. Like...fruit. But not so...fruity, you know? More like --flowers." Jim's eyes popped open; he hadn't been aware of closing them. "Perfume, it's perfume! It's Jamie's, Chief, I recognize it from last night. Damn it...I can't find it!"

"Whoa, Jim, calm down." Blair moved to stand in front of Jim, forcing eye contact, hands on both shoulders now. "Be one with the chill, my friend."

"Blair, don't--"

"I said relax," Blair ordered. "I'm not doing anything I haven't done a thousand times before, okay? I'm not trying anything wonky."

"It's too risky."

"Deal. It's my choice, Jim. Now, shut up and listen, okay? Jamie's counting on us."

Blair's eyes were red with exhaustion, and his jaw line was shadowed with stubble, but he didn't look tired for all that; he looked energized, ready. Capable. And there was already a restrained light shining in his eyes. Blair had him, and he knew it.

"Okay, Sandburg." Jim leveled a finger at Blair's chest. "You win -- for now. But if you feel anything -- _anything_ \-- even the slightest bit weird or strange, you bail out fast. I mean it, Blair. No risks. Are we clear?"

"Oh, yeah, Jim, crystal. Absolutely." Blair nodded enthusiastically, hair falling forward into his eyes, and Jim sighed. His partner was totally devoid of any sense of self-preservation.

The room went away. Jim concentrated, shut his eyes, shut out everything but Blair. "You need me to think of a happy place?"

A light smack on one cheek, and Jim didn't have to open his eyes to know Blair was smiling now. "Ha. You're killing me," he said. "Besides, I don't think you know any happy places. Just listen to my voice, and block out every other sound. Focus on your sense of smell, and filter like I taught you. One thing at a time: sense it, tag it, then put it away. Find that flowery, not-quite-alcohol smell -- we've really gotta work on your descriptive skills, Jim--"

Blair's voice stopped the instant Jim found it. "There." Jim opened his eyes, just a little surprised -- as always -- by how easy it could be. He grinned and smacked Blair's head lightly. "It's there. I got it. Let's go."

The smell came from the right. Jim headed down the hallway, moving as fast as he could without losing the trail. Blair was right on his heels, a fiercely determined shadow, keeping pace and waving away anyone who approached them. They didn't have to go far; a left, down past the nurses station -- a confusing moment, that, with suddenly ten other perfume-smells to tag and drop. Then a right, and then a doorway. It was marked 'Supplies', and the scent was strongest there.

Jim drew his gun. He couldn't hear anything from inside, couldn't focus with all the coming and going around them. "Go get Simon," he said, still far enough back to whisper without announcing their presence. "Now!"

Blair shook his head, moved ten paces down the hall, and pulled his cell phone out of his jacket. Jim's teeth clenched; he'd wanted Blair away. Instead, he was back in seconds, nodding sharply at Jim's silent question.

Together, they bracketed the doorway, Jim on the right, Blair pressed up against the wall on the left. Simon arrived, with Rafe and Joel Taggart in tow, just in time to clear the hallway of curious hospital staffers. Jim met each of their eyes, silently taking command of the situation, silently receiving it with a nod from each of them.

Five men, four with guns, against whatever was on the other side of that door. Had to be enough. Had to be. Jim gathered his team in with his eyes, one final check before moving in.

With a spread hand in full view, Jim folded in his fingers one by one, counting down from five.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


It happened fast, and Blair stood back out of the way, instinct rooting him to the floor just beside the doorway. He heard Jim's voice, a yell -- _"Get a medic in here!"_ \-- and winced, pressing his back to the wall. He didn't even want to think about a scene so ugly it had catapulted Jim back into military terminology.

_You-are-not-a-cop._ The mental reminder came out tough -- Ellison-style, in Jim's voice -- and it held him in place when guilt threatened to drag him into the suddenly busy supply room. It held him when the first nurse responded to Jim's shout, the fear on her face sliding into wide-eyed, white-faced shock as she did an about face and headed for the nurse's station. Seconds later her voice rang over the PA, calm but breathless, calling for a team -- stat.

The doctors came next, with pale blue scrubs and stethoscopes and a gurney. Still Blair stayed out of the way, body tense as a spring, nearly thrumming with a slowly intensifying need to be at his partner's side. He was no sentinel, but he hadn't heard Jim's voice since that single, harsh shout -- and if Jim was talking, he would've. He was close enough to hear.

_He zoned on your hand, Sandburg._

Blair swallowed a deep breath and went in.

The sheer lack of desperate activity in the room told Blair all he needed to know about the status of Officer Peterson. The man was already on the gurney; as the silent detectives looked on with stone-cold anger, one of the docs draped a sheet carefully over his body. Blair had to squeeze up against the door frame to get through as they wheeled him out, and he breathed a silent prayer of thanks to whoever was listening that he hadn't had to see the injury that had killed Peterson.

He was at Jim's side before he realized there was someone else in the room who was neither a doctor nor one of Cascade's finest.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


"He okay?" Blair asked, kneeling down beside the huge orderly who had wheeled him out of the building not so many hours ago. The man leaned up against the wall, his chest rising and falling steadily, his hand clutching the back of his head as a wince twisted his mouth and settled into the lines around his eyes. Blair squeezed the guy's shoulder to get his attention. "You okay, man?"

"He's gonna be just fine, aren't you, son?" Simon said from behind. The look in his eyes when Blair glanced up at him spoke volumes. The orderly was the closest thing they had to a witness, he damn well better be fine. "You want us to get you a doctor?"

"Nah. I've been hurt worse." The voice was soft, a clear, carrying tenor. Blair would've bet good money the guy could sing professionally with a voice like that, if he weren't pushing wheelchairs and emptying bedpans at Cascade County General. "I could use a hand up, though."

Blair didn't even bother; he just stepped aside and let Jim by. Between them, he and Simon managed to get the orderly on his feet. There was a familiar gleam of excitement in Jim's eyes; Blair read it like a textbook, familiar passages underlined and highlighted.

This guy was in for the interrogation of a lifetime; anything he'd seen or heard in the past few hours was going to be extracted in vivid, excruciating detail until Jim was satisfied he couldn't know more about what had happened without crawling into the orderly's skull and setting up housekeeping. As if the rest of it weren't enough, as if enough pain and horror hadn't welled out of this case, now a cop was dead. If the Blade wasn't such a sick, twisted, evil son-of-a-bitch, Blair could've almost felt sorry for him. It wasn't about putting a killer away anymore; it was about putting a monster down. Jim -- none of them -- would rest until it was over.

Which of course meant that Blair wouldn't rest. Which meant it was time to call in.

Sighing, he flipped open his cell phone and punched in the number for the Anthro office. He wouldn't make his afternoon class, and it didn't look good for the next morning, either. "Shelley? Yeah, it's Bl...yeah. No, I'm fine. I'm fine, Shelley. No. There aren't any scars, and if there were, I wouldn't show them to you. Yeah, I know you did. I _know_. Just tell Dr. Harvey-- No, I don't want to tell her my.... Hi, Dr. Harvey. Yeah, I didn't expect to be calling, either. No, I'm fine...."

Behind him, Jim said something quiet to Simon. The part of Blair not arguing with the department chair flinched. Jim was on his last legs, but you had to hand it to the guy. He was still standing.

He hoped Jim was up to this. Hell, Blair hoped he was up to it. He wanted to go to Jim, offer a shoulder to lean on, but he doubted the gesture would be appreciated. Not when Jim was about to Hoover the brains out of a witness, when he needed not just strength, but the appearance of strength, too.

Later, at home, he'd take care of his partner. Now, it was all he could do to take care of himself. "Yes, Dr. Harvey," he said quietly into the phone. "Ha ha. I think Detective Ellison has one observer too many already, he wouldn't appreciate me bringing the whole class. They'd...uh. Sure, they'd learn a lot, but...okay. Okay. I _promise_. No, I mean it. Thanks."

He turned back to Jim. "We almost had fifteen freshman following us around for the rest of the day."

"What saved us?"

"Harvey's worried about the class mortality rate."

Jim put a hand on his shoulder and grinned. "I don't know, I keep you pretty much intact. A herd of freshmen would be a piece of cake."

Blair's jaw dropped. "_You_ keep _me_ intact?"

But Jim had already tuned him out. "Sir," he said to the orderly, "if you're sure you're feeling all right, we'd like you to ask you a few questions. First -- your name?"

The orderly flicked a glance down at Blair that translated clearly as 'Is this guy for real?' and rolled his eyes when Blair shrugged unhelpfully. "Brandon Winters." He rubbed the back of his head and sighed. "Can we at least do this in the break room?"

"Sure," Jim said easily. He tapped Blair's shoulder and pointed, jerking his head toward the door. Blair let them file out ahead of him, then trailed along slowly behind.

It was going to be a long, long day.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Jim clenched his fist, looked over at his partner, and tried not to be as mad as he was. Three hours of questioning -- inquisition was more like it, no way to deny that -- had yielded exactly zero information. Brandon Winters was observant, willing, honest, brave, thrifty, and clean -- but as far as the events of the morning were concerned, he was _tabula rasa_. A totally blank slate.

The glance over at the slumped rubble of his partner only fanned the flames of irritation. Blair had been fine for the first hour, but somewhere in the middle of the second he'd started swallowing back yawns with unflattering frequency. Jim wasn't putting on great theatre here or anything, but Blair could have at least faked some enthusiasm for the interrogation. Instead, he had his chin propped on one hand, his breathing had deepened, and his eyes had started to glaze. Jim was starting to wonder if zone-outs might be contagious.

"Sandburg, do you mind?"

Blair took a deep breath, released it slowly, and came back from the ether. Not at all startled, not like a man who'd been napping with his eyes open. How did he do that, anyway? "Mind what, Jim?"

"Forget it." With a sigh, Jim turned back to his witness. Winters was grinning. "Problem?"

"Not at all, Detective," the orderly said firmly.

"Good. Let's go over this one more--"

"Jim, come on." Blair fell against the back of his chair, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling. "We've been at this for hours, we're getting nowhere, and if the nurses don't get their break room back soon, man, I don't wanna be around to see what happens. If we were going to get anything this way, we'd have it by now."

Leaning back himself, Jim glared at his partner -- one of his best tricks, guaranteed to stop psychopaths in their tracks and rumored to intimidate bombs into defusing themselves out of sheer terror. "You saying you want to give up?"

Neither the glare nor the tone had any noticeable effect on Blair. "No. I'm just saying that we tried it your way, Jim. It's time to try it mine, okay? Look, Brandon here -- he doesn't remember anything after getting conked on the head, and not a whole lot that happened before. But you know as well as I do, Jim, that it's just a matter of access. A failure to remember doesn't necessarily mean that what happened isn't in there somewhere, locked in his mind someplace he can't reach. All we have to do is help him get to it." Sandburg turned to Winters, whose Neanderthal brow was wrinkled with confusion. "You ever done any meditation, Brandon? Deep breathing, relaxation techniques, anything like that?"

"My girlfriend tried to talk me into a yoga class once," Winters said. "But I'm not quite the physical type for it."

"Okay, big guy, I hear you." Blair smiled. "I'm just going to walk you through this, okay? Nothing strange, I'm just going to try to help you relax, maybe think a little more clearly than people normally do for a few minutes. You up for it?"

This was Blair's territory, what he did best, and as long as he didn't bring any stupid guide tricks to the party, Jim was willing to let him handle the entertainment. He took a mental step back to let Blair work.

Winters nodded and adjusted his beefy arms self-consciously on the table. "What do I need to do?"

"Excellent!" Blair bounded out of his chair and planted his butt on the edge of the table, feet on the chair just beside Winters. Jim leaned heavily onto the other edge for counterbalance, just in time to keep the table from tipping over; his glare went totally unnoticed as Blair focused all of his attention on their witness. "Okay, first thing, close your eyes."

"This feels really weird," Winters complained half-heartedly.

_Story of my life._ Jim closed his own eyes and leaned forward to rest his head on steepled hands. _Better you than me, Bud._

"Couple hundred years ago, people thought bathing felt weird, but we're pretty damn glad of it now, aren't we? You just relax and listen to my voice, okay?"

"Blair...." Tension knotted the muscles along his spine. Jim didn't want him using that particular voice on a stranger. "Don't."

"It's okay, Jim. I'm not going there." Blair turned for just a moment, looked at him for just a moment, and things were better. Not great, but better. "Just a little detour into the Sandburg Zone."

Brandon Winters and the break room and the case, all of it went away. There was just Jim and his partner. Sentinel and guide, no two ways about it, and from the soft, open expression on Blair's tired, face, Jim could see the communication went both ways. For that moment, Blair seemed curiously solid, strangely real. He was the only thing in the room that had any color.

He burned with it, and something in Jim responded with unquestioning trust. "Whatever," he said finally, casually, forcing himself to relax. "Just get on with it. We don't have all day here, Chief."

Blair tossed off a sloppy salute before, as ordered, he got on with it.

"We're going back a little in time," Blair said to Winters, and now Jim could actually hear the difference. Not the weird thing then, nothing dangerous. Just Blair getting somebody to take it easy. When he thought about it, it wasn't too far removed from the tone Blair used to get Simon's blood pressure back into a normal range whenever the captain really let them have it.

And Winters responded to it, too, just like everybody else did.

"...behind the wheelchair, pushing down the corridor. Officer Peterson is beside you. What do you hear, Brandon? Think back. Relax and open yourself to the memories...."

Winters' voice was soft, slurred, when he finally got around to saying anything. "The little girl is talking to the policeman...she's wondering if her brother will be there soon. He tells her...Henry?...is working, but he'll be there when he can. She sounds upset, but not too bad. She's a good kid."

"What are you doing?"

"I'm just pushing the chair. I'm kind of hungry. I'm not going to get lunch, either; I have to get ready for a class I teach at six. This is my long day, I don't get any breaks."

"Had my share of those," Blair said with a quick, dark look at Jim. "Move forward for me, Brandon. What happened after that?"

"Nothing. Nothing. Wait--" Winters' head tilted to one side, and he frowned.. "--Someone's behind me."

"I need you to focus on the person behind you. Tell me what you hear."

"...footsteps...at first it's nothing, but then...they're too close, right next to me. It's a man. He's...big. Very big, like me. He says...he says...damn it, it's not coming!"

"Brandon, calm down." Authority made Blair's voice snap like a whip. "Relax, man, and it will come. Breathe for me...that's it...slow, deep breaths. Easy...now. Listen to his voice, not the words. What does he sound like?"

"Deep voice. Rough."

"Deeper than mine? Yours? Jim's?"

"Deeper than any of us. Gravelly."

"Okay, I want you to let that sound fill your mind, let it take its own shape, Brandon. Don't force it. Just let it say what it says."

"...perfect. He said she was perfect, and he called her by some other name. Alice, something like that, Lisa mayb -- no. Alisha. He called her Alisha."

Blair's eyes snapped up to meet Jim's. "Yes!" he hissed, so low only Jim could hear. Jim jerked a quick nod, then turned his attention back to Winters. The man's face had gone slack, expressionless; remembering had released some tension, and now he was all but sleeping.

Blair went back to work. "Stay with me, Brandon, just a little longer. You're turning to him. What do you see?"

"...he's tall. He's as big as I am, but his hair is light, and his eyes are, too. He's kind of plain, not what you'd call attractive. God, he's smiling...."

A tremor shook Winters' body; Blair calmed him with a touch to the shoulder. "Almost there, Brandon. What happened next?"

"Pain. Felt like my head exploded. That's all there is, Blair, everything went black after that. That's all there is." His eyes opened slowly, flicking from Blair's face to Jim. "I'm sorry. I can't remember anything else."

Blair patted his arm and hopped off the table. "You did great, Brandon. No apologies. We owe you, man."

Jim nodded and extended his hand to clasp Winters'. "You've been a big help, Mr. Winters," he said. "I'll need you to come down to the station this afternoon to make this a formal statement, if that's all right."

"No problem, Detective. Anything I can do to help. Jamie's a sweet kid, and I don't want any harm to come to her. Did anything I said...I mean, did any of it answer questions for you?"

Blair nodded enthusiastically. "You don't even know, man." He turned to Jim, the early sparks of a fire called 'research' glowing in his eyes. "I knew the name thing was significant, I just knew it. There's something in there, I can almost feel it. I want to hit a few bookstores, Jim, and the campus library. See if I can work this out."

"Go." Jim waved Blair toward the door. "Like I could stop you if I wanted to. Just promise me, Sandburg -- research. Nothing more. If I find out you've--"

Blair rolled his eyes, nearly bouncing with pent-up energy. "C'mon, man, I'm cool. No heroics, no disappearing acts, no--" waggling his fingers in the air between them "--weird stuff. How much trouble can I get into in a bookstore, Jim? Worse case, I go over the limit on my Visa."

With a quick, reassuring wave, Blair was out the door.

"Whoa." Winters blinked as he watched dust settle in Blair's wake. "Is he always so...so...."

Jim shrugged back and shook his head. "My friend," he said, "You have no idea."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


There he was.

It had taken three stops and just over an hour to find him, but there he was, his head bent over a book, glasses sliding to the tip of his nose, totally oblivious. His hair hung down like a curtain, hiding the intensity of his face, the gentleness, the brilliance. This kid was amazing, it was like there was a fire in him, burning away everything but compassion and information.

This was purity. He'd never guessed it could exist in someone so much older, someone adult, but here it was and suddenly, he was no longer alone. No longer a single pilgrim on an empty road. Surrounded by dark wood shelves, dark books, dark people, this guy had something, a light, and the light made the journey light, too.

And -- he understood. No one else had, no one else could even come close. There was a depth to this man, this boy, this...companion? Friend? Brother?...that called to him

He was -- not quite perfect. Men never were.

But God help them both; he was strong enough, and pure enough, and real enough...

Not quite perfect, but he would do. He would do just fine.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


_I'm going to bed. Right now. Eight hours, minimum. Nobody's going to begrudge me a few hours' rest. I was dead for four whole minutes, I've earned it. I'm gonna sleep so deep they'll need an exhumation order just to wake me up._ Blair's vision blurred as he fumbled with his key ring, turning the set into an indecipherable kaleidoscope of flashing grey and silver. He dropped them twice before he actually got the right key into the lock, wincing at the jangle until he remembered Jim wasn't home

_Forget the bed._ He dropped his backpack and slammed the door shut with a loud, satisfying bang. _Too much junk on the bed. Couch first, bed later._

He looked at the closed doors to his bedroom for a full three seconds before deciding he had twenty-four good excuses for a temporary suspension of the house rules. He'd been awake for a day straight, if you didn't count a couple of hours lying comatose in a hospital bed, and if that didn't give him the right to leave his shoes on the living room floor and his outermost shirt over the back of the couch, he didn't want to know what did. Besides, Jim had been awake just as long; he was going to be a walking zone-out by the time he made it home. Blair would be lucky if he didn't end up sharing the couch.

_Oh, man...._ It was a crime how good it felt to sink into the soft cushions, to position the throw pillow just right between his neck and shoulder, to close his eyes. He'd had sex that didn't feel this good, which while not something to be proud of, was definitely worth keeping in mind. Might come in handy the next time he had a choice between going out with Sam and taking a really long nap.

_Cold, Blair. Very, very cold. But then, so's Sam._

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Sitting at his desk in the middle of a ring of silence, Jim looked over Brandon Winters' signed statement yet again. He could feel eyes on him like whisper-soft fingertips; the weight of the stares of his fellow detectives settled between his shoulder blades in a persistent, cold itch. He knew what they wanted, and he knew he couldn't give it to them, but he read through everything Winters had offered him one more time, all the same.

Just in case.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been staring at the same page, the same line, when a warm, heavy hand fell on his shoulder and yanked him back to reality. _Not a zone,_ he assured himself, running a clock check to make sure his senses hadn't taken him on a short vacation to nowhere. Just exhaustion, plain and simple. Jim Ellison, Officer of the Year, had come within a few deep breaths of snoring at his desk.

He looked up, squinting against the bright overheads, and found Simon looming over him like a dark, brooding ghost. It would be a stretch to say a man with Simon's skin color looked pale, but he certainly seemed washed out. Something around his eyes, maybe. A few lines that hadn't been there before. Jim didn't have the energy to analyze it.

"Nothing," he said finally. He saw the disappointment in Simon's eyes first. Turning, he found the same look on a dozen other faces, his task force surrounding him like a group of especially gloomy pall-bearers. Only Rafe held onto a spark of hope, and Jim wasn't really sure hope was the right name for the glint burning deep in the young detective's eyes. He wasn't really sure he liked it any better than the despair in the faces of the rest of the men, either.

"Give us the description." Simon slumped down into the chair usually manned by Blair. "Rafe, you put it up on the board."

"Big guy, about 6'5", about 250 pounds. Light hair, light eyes. Maybe blue, maybe grey, maybe green. Deep voice." Jim looked at the page as he reeled off the description, but he didn't need it. He'd read it so many times he thought the words must be burned into some dark corner of his brain, flaming letters a mile high. Some small part of him was convinced he was missing a connection, something vital, so he'd read the report over and over, hoping to jar something loose in his mind. Blair would've called it neurotic to hold on to that idea, that illusion that the solution was somehow within his control. Irrational expectations leading to irrational guilt when -- if -- things went the wrong way.

Not a bad theory. Pity it didn't do him a damn bit of practical good.

Head down, Jim could hear the soft, wet squeak as Rafe added the description to the white dry-erase board they'd set up along the wall next to Simon's office. If he'd wanted, he could have taken a deep, considered breath and told Simon what color marker Rafe was using, just from the chemical signature. Blair had tested him on inks a while back, cartons and cartons of ballpoints, liquid ink pens, felt-tips, magic markers, dry-erase markers, brand names and generics, colors Jim never even heard of. It'd been a hell of a great fishing weekend lost forever in the stainless-steel sterility of the Hargrove Hall Anthro lab, and it'd left him with a blazing headache the size of a city bus.

Not at all unlike the one throbbing behind his eyes right now.

When the writing stopped, Jim looked up and read the words again, scrawled in Rafe's blocky handwriting.

Nothing.

Jim slammed a hand down on his desk. "Damn it. Simon, I'm missing something. There's something here, I know it. I can feel it. It's just not coming."

Simon's frown got worse, and his eyes shifted away. Something about his posture changed as he spoke; suddenly, his jacket looked like it fit less well around him, like the fabric had shrunk in the space of a single deep breath. "Maybe it's a Blair thing."

"A Blair thing, sir?"

"You know, Ellison. One of those things only the kid can help you with?" When Jim still failed to get whatever the message was, Simon's lowered his voice and hissed. "Something maybe he can _guide_ you in?"

"Ah. Uh. Sorry, sir." Jim cleared his throat and glanced around, made sure nobody was paying attention. "I wasn't thinking on that level."

"You're not thinking at all, Jim." Simon passed a hand over his face, glancing in its wake around the bullpen at the detectives who were studiously not watching the two of them. "Look, I'll wrap things up here. You go home, get some sleep, then get Sandburg to go over these files with you. Whatever it is, the two of you will find it."

"Simon, I can't--"

"I'm sorry, did that sound like a request?"

_Clean sheets on the bed, a soft pillow, peace, silence...._ He tried one more time to resist. "Sir--"

"I have a gun."

"I give." Smiling as much as he was able, Jim held up both hands in the classic sign of surrender. "I'll go quietly."

Simon laid a hand on Jim's arm, stopping him before he stood. "You okay to drive? I can have a uniform--"

Jim shook off Simon's hand gently and stood, fishing his keys out of his pocket. "I'm okay to drive." Grabbing his jacket, Jim started for the door.

"You smash up another truck, Jim, the department will not pay for it."

"I'll treat it like it was my very own, Simon," he muttered, making sure Simon caught his tone if not the actual words. The sharp glare he got in return was well-earned.

In spite of the exhaustion, Jim walked faster as he left the department. Home was just twenty minutes away.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Twilight deepened the shadows in the already darkened loft, filtering pale and blue through the balcony doors and silvering everything it touched. It fell across the bare planks of the hardwood floor, across the oblivious sleeper breathing deeply on the couch, and across the tall, broad shape of the stranger who hovered over him.

Watching.

Eyes wide, he watched Blair sleep. He watched the rise and fall of Blair's chest, the restless movement of his eyes behind closed lids as he dreamed, the subtle shifting of his body as he tried to get warmer. He watched, and waited. This was meant.

It was all flowing together, the chaotic waters of three separate lives converging into a deep, swift river that would not be dammed, could not be turned aside. He could see the events that had brought them all together, and it was like the crescendo of a symphony of fate. His purpose burned in him, hummed in him, making his eyes water. Making his heart race.

Soon, now. Very, very soon.

Just for a moment, he thought about reaching out to touch Blair, waking him up, sitting down beside him and explaining everything. The need to see understanding in his eyes was almost physical, a gut-level compulsion. He wanted to share it now, share it all, be together with Blair in the thing they had to do.

Carefully, he pulled a soft afghan from the back of the couch and spread it over Blair's body. With gentle hands he pulled it up to cover Blair's shoulders. He took a quick, stumbling step backward when Blair turned over, pressing back into the back of the couch.

Blair's hands came up and pulled the cover up to his chin. "Thanks, Jim," he mumbled, never quite waking, never opening his eyes.

"Any time, Chief," his watcher answered. "Any time."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


With quiet care, to avoid waking Blair, Jim eased open the door to the loft. Inside, darkness clung to everything like oil, turning his home into a hazy, alien landscape, all strangeness and shadow. Sentinel sight brightened it, returned it to sense and order, answering his need automatically, thanks to endless tests and training sessions. Testing and training, as Blair would say, sucked, but the results were pretty damn convenient.

Blair sprawled on the couch, limbs flung wide, an ungainly wreck of anthropologist half-covered by an afghan too thin to be very warm. His shoes and backpack had never made it past the front door, and his favorite shirt lay beside the couch in a puddle of black and white flannel. Shaking his head, Jim smiled just a little and kicked his own shoes off. Blair had suspended the house rules temporarily, and just this once, Jim wasn't about to argue.

Exhaustion pulled at him like gravity, but Jim fought it off for a few more seconds and tuned in to his partner's body. The quick check confirmed that Blair was colder than he generally liked to be, and that his sleep wasn't as deep as Jim thought it should be. Solving both problems at once, Jim took another blanket -- a soft, fuzzy deal with a big horse on it that Blair had picked up on sale at Wal-Mart -- from the back closet and draped it over Blair. Carefully, he tucked Blair's arms under it and pulled it up over his shoulders.

"Cut it out," Blair mumbled, frowning. He turned on his side and curled deeper into the warmth of the blanket.

Jim rolled his eyes. "You're so very welcome, Sandburg," he said as his partner's breathing deepened and evened out again. _So much for gratitude._

Exhaustion settling into him, Jim looked up toward the well of shadows that hid his bedroom from all but sentinel sight. There seemed to be more steps along the wall than usual, the stairway stretching interminably high into darkness. "I'd never make it," he muttered softly, shaking his head to dispel the illusion. It was late, and he was tired, and there was another couch just behind him.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Consciousness was bright and painful, built from yellow light and the lingering heaviness of sleep. Blair blinked several times. His lids moved over his eyes like fine-grained sandpaper. He pushed himself up on one elbow.

His body screamed early, but the slant of the sun said late. He shook his head, blinked again, and watched groggily as the rumpled heap on the other couch slowly resolved itself into the shape of his partner. Jim was just watching him, smiling slightly in that way he had of looking vastly entertained without ever moving a muscle. His clothes had been slept in, and his jaw was developing a mug-shot shadow, but his eyes were alert.

Blair groaned softly and let himself fall back onto the cushions.

"Oh, no." Jim came off the couch to grab Blair's arm and pull him vertical. "You sleep much longer, they'll revoke your amateur status. Fifteen hours, chief. You haven't been alive long enough to get more tired than that."

"I'm going for a record." Blair pulled out of Jim's grip. He rubbed at his arm and glared with very little heat. "That hurt."

"We'll swing by Emergency on the way in." Jim patted the offended limb none too gently. "I hear they're running a special for hypochondriacs. I made toast," he added quietly after a brief pause, a tiny crease forming between his eyebrows. "And coffee."

After being stared awake by sentinel-sight, man-handled, and made fun of, all in the space of two minutes, Blair was in no mood to accept Jim's idea of an olive branch. He let out a whuff of breath, unimpressed, and pretended he didn't see the corner of Jim's mouth start to twitch. Lucky for you I'm too tired to retaliate, he thought darkly, vaguely pleased with the silent, ineffective rebellion.

A second later the scent hit him, and his entire body hummed to attention, Pavlov-style.

Coffee.

He was in the kitchen with a steaming mug in his hand before the word had a chance to filter through, breathing in the rich, bitter scent with no conscious memory of how he'd arrived at the sink. Or transferred the coffee from pot to mug, for that matter, but the lapse didn't much concern him. He took a deep breath, ignoring the sear of steam against his skin. _Liquid energy. Who needs food? Oh, man, this is good...._

"You gonna drink that, or just zone on it?"

Blair opened his eyes and this time met Jim's half smile with one of his own. "Sorry, man," he said. "Usually you get a miss on my morning face."

"It's a pleasure I'm willing to forgo," Jim admitted, reaching out to lift a lank strand of hair out of Blair's coffee mug. He shook his head, and the grin widened. "I thought I was bad."

"Rough week," Blair said without thinking--

\--and immediately regretted it. The easy, companionable comfort-zone vanished like mist in the sunlight, leaving them with reality and silence.

Long minutes passed before either was willing to speak again. The case was inescapable. Blair was fairly sure he'd even dreamed about it; there were images in his mind, half-formed shapes and distant sounds that merged into dark rush of ever-growing tension just below the level of conscious thought. He could feel it, he could even sense the vague outlines of the anxiety, but he couldn't pinpoint its source.

He shook his head, shook it off. Crazy case, crazy dreams. Not exactly surprising. Probably even Simon needed a night-light these days.

"Hey, it was a nice five minutes," Blair said lightly. He tried on a grin, and managed to get about half of one out of Jim. That was better, so he set down his mug, deliberately failing to rinse it out, and clapped his friend on the shoulder in passing. "I need a shower." He grabbed a slice of cold toast on his way, took a bite of it, and set it down on the counter. "You want to clean this mess up while I change?"

This time the grin came on full. "Do I look like hired help, Sandburg?"

"I don't think I have to answer that without a lawyer present." Blair watched approvingly as Jim ran water in the sink to wash up their mugs. "Good man," he said, and wandered off toward his room.

He stopped just outside the door, frowned, and replayed the night before in his mind. He'd been tired -- very, very tired--

But the door was now open, just a crack, and he knew it hadn't been last night.

"Hey, Jim?"

Jim didn't even look up; he was obviously pleased with his work, elbow-deep in suds, his face still with concentration. "You need somebody to hold your towel for you?" he said absently, rubbing at a spot that probably, to any normal view, didn't exist.

Blair ignored him, his frown deepening. It was one thing to know Jim could inventory his room by smell; to think of him exploring it with the rest of his senses was seriously creepy. "What were you doing in my room?"

Jim looked up from the sink, hands dripping with suds, head cocked to one side. "This some kind of trick question?"

"You weren't in there last night?" Blair said. "To get a blanket or something, maybe?"

"Your room is scary in broad daylight, chief, and I'm trained for caution. I wouldn't risk it at night without special equipment."

"Right." Blair nodded rapidly and without humor, his eyes losing focus as his mind raced. "Whatever." It was a door, just an open door, but it wasn't the way he'd left it, and he didn't like that. On a scale of one to ten, he liked it about a negative eight.

"I shut my doors before we left yesterday," he said softly to the floor. Only Jim could've heard him.

In the silence that greeted that statement, he looked up and met Jim's sharpening gaze.

"Haven't been in since."

Jim nodded once, waved for silence, and carefully dried off his hands. "Don't use all the hot water," he said aloud, and Blair fell into the act with him just that fast.

He made for the bathroom while Jim began the work of listening. He turned on the water with a solid twist, and plastered himself against the wall beside the door. "Cold showers build character, man," he yelled toward the kitchen. He counted silently for courage and calm, eyes closed tight in concentration.

"That's why if anybody has one, it oughta be you," Jim called back. By the door, Blair judged, which meant by his jacket, which meant he had his gun now. Not one to put all his faith in firearms, Blair set about making do as quietly as he could.

When the slam came, he was ready, into the hallway and at Jim's back in the time it took to blink. His door rebounded off the wall behind it, the glass panes still rattling in their moldings, and the business end of Jim's gun followed the targeting of his eyes like it was laser-sighted. Together they scanned the room, checking everything, Jim standing over Blair to cover him as he checked the closet and, with a certain level of embarrassed paranoia, under the bed.

From his crouch, Blair looked up and shook his head silently. Jim lowered his gun.

The bed was made up tightly with military corners, the pillow smooth and centered, the hardwood floor clean and free of dust. The room was neater than it had ever been.

Blair ran a hand through his hair and surveyed his domain. Jim looked a little sheepish standing there with his gun drawn on dead air, and Blair felt kind of silly about his own sense of alarm. Still...someone had been here.

"Guess I don't have to tell you I didn't leave it like this," he said, trying for levity.

Jim wasn't going for it. His eyes were trained on Blair's right hand. "What the hell is that?"

Blushing, Blair held it up to the light from the window. Sun flashed off chrome, carefully directed away from Jim's eyes. "It, um. Used to be a towel rack."

"And will be again," Jim said.

"And will be again. I just thought, you know, back-up and everything...."

"Yeah. Good thought. Though it looks like at worst you'd have beaten up a fairly good housekeeper."

"Who broke in while I was sleeping, Jim. As a rule, I'm against that. I mean, you may think this is an improvement, and I can't really argue, considering what it looked like before, but this whole reverse-ransack happened while I was making like a coma-victim on the couch."

His voice was shaking. So were his hands. Blair leaned heavily against the wall for support.

"I know," Jim said. Blair looked up and saw him nodding, saw understanding in his eyes, and felt some of his tension draining away. Detective James Ellison had replaced the friend who'd teased him about his coffee habits and gone surly over doing the dishes, and the change was not at all unwelcome. Authority wasn't always a bad thing. Sometimes authority was just what the doctor ordered.

"Jim, did you hear--?"

"Not a thing. But after Brackett--"

"Yeah, I know. After Brackett, that doesn't mean a lot. Someday I'm gonna find where they locked that dickwad up, and I'm gonna go there, just to kick his teeth in."

"You navigate; I'll drive."

"Deal," Blair said quietly. Then, because somebody had to: "What do we do now?"

"We call Simon, get a team over here. We don't touch anything. I'm going to go upstairs and take a look, see if the cleaning crew hit there too."

"Think you'll be able to tell the difference?"

Jim grinned, drawing an answering smile from Blair. "Nobody cleans like a sentinel," he said.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Jim's room hadn't been touched beyond the presence of a friendly little note -- a situation soon remedied by the forensics team. They were out in force, blue jackets with bright yellow letters swarming over the loft like happy little worker-bees. At first Jim had tried to stay away from them, but his fingers would stretch out, and then curl in tight as dying spiders, and after about three minutes of it, the poor guy just couldn't take it anymore. It was like there were three of him, latex-covered fingers in everything, sniffing out his own home like an angry blood-hound on speed.

The scene being played out was familiar enough to set Blair, finally, at ease. It was clear from the outset that the forensics squad couldn't stand the sight of Jim Ellison. They glared at the detective when he got too close, bagged the evidence fast if he even looked like coming near, and -- there was no other way to say it -- they herded, banding together to cordon off anything they thought might be interesting or revealing.

Blair, maintaining his station-face of solemn interest with great difficulty, thought it was hilarious. Sam was...considerably less amused.

"Can't you do something about him?"

"Like what?" Not above a little taunting, Blair grinned. "He's good at this. Who needs a lab?"

"Jim Ellison needs a lab, if he wants to build any kind of a case," she snapped. Twin brown beams of irritation swung his way; Blair very nearly ducked. "But then, that's not really how you guys work, is it?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing." Her eyes raked over Blair with obvious disgust before she turned away. "Ellison! Let Mike work, okay? There's no telling what's on that, and I don't want you mucking around with it."

"I'm not mucking--"

"You are, too. Don't make me call Simon, Jim. You know what he'll say."

"Let the experts do their jobs," Jim and Blair intoned together.

"If you don't, I'll have you writing it on the blackboard," Simon said.

Plaintiff and defendants turned and watched Simon picking his way through the crowd. "We use overheads now," Blair said. "Hey, Simon. Wondered when you'd get here."

"I'd've been sooner, but nobody told me there was going to be a party."

"Sorry we didn't go all out on favors," Jim replied, holding up an evidence bag.

Simon took it. "I didn't get you anything," he said absently. "Ah, lovely. Another note. I love a psychopath with good communication skills."

Sam's lips had pressed into a thin line, pale beneath the pink lipstick. "My people have not gone over that," she said tightly. "My people haven't even seen that! For God's sake, Jim, where did you--"

"It was in my bedroom," Jim said, blank-faced. Blair looked away; he didn't want any part of this one.

"You shouldn't have touched--"

"It was in my bedroom. I've only been a cop for six years, I'm familiar with evidence-gathering techniques. I didn't mess anything up, and--"

"You didn't even tell us about it!"

Her voice had risen, and everyone in the room was quiet now, listening. Sam took a deep breath, and took a step toward Simon. Blair tensed up; she'd been toasted lightly by Jim's observational skills in the past, but she'd never actually complained.

"Captain Banks," she said formally. "My people have come here to analyze a crime scene. Are we unnecessary?"

"Samantha--"

"Shut up, Jim." She tucked a long strand of brown hair behind one ear and didn't even look at him. "We're trained to gather evidence. We can't do that if the evidence is gathered before we're ever called onto the scene. We can't tag it, we can't log it, and we can't get it into the lab. If we're going to be rendered obsolete by Detective Ellison's presence on any given scene, I'd like to know so I don't waste time and money sending the team out."

Simon's spine straightened, his eyes going hard. Blair held his breath; he knew how this would play out, he knew it. Simon was behind them, he always had been, but this was the first time Blair had ever seen how good their back-up was.

Or how much it cost.

"Dr. Gates, are you lodging a formal complaint?"

It wasn't that Simon's voice was cold; there was compassion in it, a fine edge of something approaching pity. There was a weight to it, though, that everyone in the room could feel. Samantha faltered and looked down.

"Sam." Blair reached out to her with one hand, not sure why, and in half a heartbeat Jim was beside him, pulling him away.

"Don't." Jim's grip on Blair's arm was firm, almost painful.

"I wasn't going to do anything."

"Good. Then we don't have a problem." Calmly, Jim returned his eyes to the staring match in front of them.

Blair followed his line of sight and found Sam looking up at Simon again, her face a mask of cold anger. He'd never seen her quite that angry, and as the author of any number of unpleasant looks from Samantha Gates, that was saying quite a bit.

"I don't suppose a formal complaint would do me much good," she said coolly to the captain, folding her arms across her chest.

"On the contrary, Doctor," Simon said immediately. "If you lodge a formal complaint, Detective Ellison will be removed from this crime scene and this case. He will be charged with evidence-tampering and placed on suspension, pending IA investigation. The Chief will be informed, and Sandburg's observer credentials will be pulled." Simon's gaze never wavered from hers. "Whatever it is you think is happening will be stopped at once," he said, and Blair had no doubt of his honesty, "--if that's what you want."

She said nothing and stayed hard. Blair felt like his heart had stopped beating; he waited without breathing, coiled tight as a spring, for her answer.

"Is that what you want, Sam?" Again that awful compassion was in Simon's voice, a level of understanding passing between the two of them that made Blair feel cold and just a little sick at heart.

Slowly, Samantha shook her head. "No," she said. Her voice was low and certain. "It's not."

"Thank you."

Her lips pressed together, eyes hardening again. "Just keep them out of my hair," she said, then turned her back on them and walked away.

Simon watched her go, then faced Jim, all business. "What's in the note?"

Jim took his cue. "It's very obscure, sir. Mentions fate, power, and a witness named Christopher. It was on my bed, and for the time being we're assuming that's a reference to me."

"Jim's the lead officer on the case," Blair said, nothing Simon didn't know. "We think the Blade is taunting him -- us. And I think--"

"Chief, we have absolutely no proof of--"

"Of what?" Simon demanded.

"I think there may be more to it. I think there's a possibility Jim is actually in danger here. We've got a list of pretty names and for every name, a murder or a kidnapping." Blair ignored the rolling of Jim's eyes and the way Simon's face set into practiced patience, and took a step closer, lowering his voice, knowing words were the only currency he had and knowing he had to make them count. "Every name except Christopher, Simon. The note was in his bed."

"Sandburg, Christopher could just as easily be you. It was your room that got the spring cleaning, not mine," Jim pointed out.

Blair didn't even look at him; he was totally zoned on Simon. "Fine," he said softly. "Put a watch on both of us. I don't care. Have Rafe follow me around; he can carry my books and make sure I'm zipped up when I leave the john, I don't care. Just don't let Jim out there without some protection, Simon. It isn't safe."

"I don't have a man to spare to follow Jim around for the next God-knows how long." Simon looked from one of them to the other, exasperation deepening the lines of his frown. Blair opened his mouth to start persuading -- even he didn't know what he was going to say, but it was going to be good and convincing because it had to be. Simon held up a hand. He had that look on his face, too, that familiar 'say-one-more-word-and-I'll-smack-you-for-the-joy-of-it' look Blair had learned meant trouble.

"However," Simon went on in a voice that overrode both Blair's unvoiced protests and Jim's premature thanks, "You do have a point, Sandburg. So, I'm going to assign you both a man each. Ellison, you look after Sandburg. Sandburg, you look after Ellison. I don't want you two out of arm's reach of each other for the next forty-eight hours for any reason. Clear?"

Blair's eyes had gone wide. "Me? You want me to look after him? I can't even make him stop eating at Wonderburger and you think I can keep track of him if he takes off? And what am I gonna do if the Blade shows up? Lecture him on negative sanctions within social groups? Hit him with my handy, dandy towel rack? Come on, Simon. Jim needs more than that. He needs somebody with a gun, for Pete's sake, and he needs--"

A hand came down on Blair's shoulder, fiendishly tight, and he looked up into a very, very determined set of sentinel eyes. His mouth closed with an audible click.

"Thank you, Captain," Jim said, his gaze never quite leaving Blair's. "That's an excellent decision, worthy of a commander of your merit and intellect. We appreciate your concern."

Simon's lip curled in disgust. "I'll just bet you do."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


_I love this guy,_ Jim chanted silently as he steered Blair out of their home and down the stairs toward the garage. _He's my friend. He's my partner. I will not wring his neck. I will not say anything I'll regret later. I will--_

"Jim?"

"Don't talk to me, Sandburg. Five minutes of silence, that's all I ask." And it was too much to ask, Jim knew it even as he said it. It was like asking Sandburg to stop breathing for a few minutes, just for Jim's convenience. Don't talk, Sandburg. Don't irritate me, Sandburg. Don't get your sorry ass killed, Sandburg--

"I can do that," Blair said quietly, and Jim spun around and grabbed his partner by the shoulders, exerting a constant strength of will to keep himself from shaking the man. They were back in the damn parking garage, and something about all the grey and all the concrete made his teeth ache. Jim could never seem to control his irritation when their voices echoed back at him like a demented Greek chorus.

He never won arguments with Blair when there were cars around. He never won arguments with Blair anywhere.

"All right, spit it out."

"What?"

"Whatever it is you weren't going to say, just say it."

Blair nodded. "Okay. Look, man, somebody's gotta watch the Watchman, right? I'd personally prefer it to be somebody with Kevlar and automatic weapons in this instance, but since I don't think Simon's about to issue me any heavy artillery, I think we should just deal with the situation he gave us and stick together. We're always safest when we're together, you know, you have to admit that."

"Why do I have to admit that? We were together when we jumped out of a plane over Peru; we were together when we jumped off a cliff in the middle of nowhere; we've been together for just about every bad thing that's happened to either of us since we met. I don't have to admit that at all."

"We weren't together when Lash broke in."

Jim stopped. He stood perfectly still until the echoes died, looking at the ground. "That's not fair."

"I know. I know it isn't. But we have that as an example, and we have to remember it. You couldn't have been there, you didn't know Lash wanted me for is nutty little reindeer games.

"But this time, we know. I don't want to be in that position, I don't want to go through what you went through. I don't want to have to go looking for you, Jim. I want to be where you are for this. And you need to be where I am, because you know Rafe or Brown or Connor -- they can't keep me out of trouble the way you can."

"They don't have the practice," Jim snapped.

Blair grinned and whacked Jim on the shoulder. "My point exactly."

Jim sighed and walked a short distance away. He put his hands on his hips and looked down at the concrete under his feet. "I wasn't planning on ditching you. I was just--"

"Planning on dropping me off with a sitter while you chased down the bad guy."

Which pretty much summed up the plan. Jim didn't understand exactly what Blair's problem was. This was the way things worked, it was -- it was genetic, for Pete's sake. If anybody understood that, it ought to be Blair. He was the one who'd come up with the whole thing to start with.

"So what do we do?" Jim turned around and found Blair looking at him with weird half-smile and something that looked a lot like pity. "I can't take you on a manhunt for a psychotic killer, Sandburg, and I can't sit on my hands waiting for him to kill somebody else. What exactly do you see us doing at this point in your plan?"

The half-smile widened in a way Jim didn't like as Blair walked past him, to the truck. "What am I best at, Jim?"

"Irritating cops," Jim snapped out instantly.

"That's a close second." Blair opened the door on his side and climbed into the truck, then waited patiently for Jim to join him.

Jim turned the key to start the engine, put the truck into reverse, and let it idle. Drumming his fingers on the wheel, he took a deep breath. "All right, Sandburg, I give. What are you best at?"

"Research."

"Research?"

"Extensive, detailed research," Blair confirmed. "Let's go to the hospital."

"We've been to the hospital. We've been to the hospital several times." Too many fucking times, if anybody asked Jim. But nobody was about to, so he swallowed that remark down.

"I have a feeling about this, Jim. There's something at the hospital, we just haven't seen it yet."

"You have a feeling, or you have a _feeling_?" Jim demanded.

"I have a hunch," Blair clarified, frowning. "And I'm not going there, so don't start, okay?"

"You live there," Jim said under his breath.

"I heard that."

"Good." Jim pulled them out of the garage, into the far right lane. At Market, he took a left. Toward the hospital.

_Lost another one._ He deliberately ignored Blair, who was sitting over there with no seat belt on, trying to pretend he wasn't smiling. _You'd think I'd be used to it by now._

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Inside the hospital, they split up. Blair was grateful for the break; Jim didn't want to be there, didn't think they'd find anything, and wasn't at all shy about saying so. Blair dealt with the silence, and with Jim acting indulgent and irritated by turns, and with the way Jim yanked at the wheel in the latter phase. He dealt with it because he knew they were close to the end.

He knew it like he knew his next breath was coming. Something was building, something dark and unpleasant, but there was information in it, and Blair was ready. He just had to keep Jim close to him, keep him from going off on his own. If he had to play the scared student to make that work, it was a price he was willing to pay.

Jim went upstairs, to Jamie's room. Blair had given him pretty strict instructions on what kind of tests to run with his senses. Jim had endured it for about two minutes before reminding Blair that there was actually a little police work in his past, and that he figured he'd be able to handle the scene on his own.

Blair went to Records. He wanted everything in Jamie's file, everything they knew about her here. This was his element: paper and notes, documentation, a trail to follow. He'd need information from her school, too, get the records there to put together the whole picture. Whatever her mom had at home. People lived out of manila folders and databases now; everything he needed to know about Jamie Brown, he'd find there.

He opened up his cell phone and dialed a number.

"Rafe, hi. Blair. Listen, I need you to track something down for me."

"You've found something?" Rafe's voice was tight; Blair could hear the strain in it.

"No, nothing yet, but I need some information. I need Jamie Brown's school file."

"We've already--"

"I know. Okay? I know. But I need it again." There was an itch between his eyes, a feeling like he was breathing the same air as the answer to all their questions. It was the same feeling he'd had when his fax machine started humming three years ago and the medical records of one Jim Ellison had spilled into his hands and changed his life. "Get me the records of the other girls, too." Blair pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. Maybe he could jar a little understanding loose.

"All of them?"

"All of them. The number here -- Damn." He opened the door and stuck his head out into the hallways. One of the nurses -- Sally? Sandy. No. _Sarah_ \-- turned around. "Fax number?" he asked, pointing at the phone. Then, as she reeled it off -- "Five oh five -- eight seven -- eight eight. Got that, Rafe?" He mouthed "Thanks, Sarah" at the nurse, who gave him a very sweet smile and ducked back into the records room.

"I got it. I'll see what I can scrounge up. We've got guys on every angle of this, Sandburg, I'm not sure how many files I can pull together."

"If you can't get them all, I'll need copies from the school. You can get them, you're a cop. I'm just a grad student with a dream. I'm sitting here on go, man, so the faster you get them to me--"

"I sure as hell hope you have something," Rafe said quietly. "Things are very, very tense around here."

"Color me surprised, man," Blair said. "You should check out the weather over here in Ellisonville."

Rafe gave a bark of laughter, so far from his usual laugh the sound was almost offensive. The hair on the back of Blair's neck stood up. Something in him reached out.

"We're all doing everything we can." The words went out hard, like he was pushing them through layers of cotton. "You listening to me?"

"I hear you," Rafe said. "But--"

"Don't. Don't feel that." Blair pushed harder -- not subtle, not kind. It was thick, dirty cotton, and it was brittle, crumbling to dust as the pressure increased. The pit of his stomach complained and rolled over into nausea. He didn't stop. He was almost through it.

"I can't help it. We're almost out of time."

"You've got to forget about that. Don't focus on what's going to happen tomorrow or the next day. Focus on what's happening right now, man, what you can do right this second. It's easy," Blair said softly, coaxing. "Be now. Take a deep breath--"

The phone was snatched out of Blair's hands, and he reeled back against the table where he'd been working. Papers scattered before he caught himself. His head was throbbing.

"Right," Jim said into the phone. His voice seemed to be coming from a great distance. "Whatever. We'll be waiting."

He clicked the phone off, snapped the lid shut, and set it down very, very carefully. Blair watched him with a strange kind of detachment, knowing he'd blown it, knowing he was just about to get reamed within an inch of his life. He couldn't care.

He'd almost made it through. The enormity of what he'd been doing ripped through him with a power that was almost painful.

Jim was right. Everything he'd said. What he'd seen. Blair took a deep breath and tried to swallow, tried to slam a lid down on the wild flood of adrenaline sparking off every nerve ending. It was exhilarating. It was scary as hell. It wasn't possible.

But it was. Jim was right.

"Jim," he said. The sound of his voice surprised him. It was thick and raw, as if he'd been talking for hours instead of merely minutes. "I'm--"

"--bleeding." Jim's voice knifed through the air, cold and remote. His eyes were empty, expressionless.

"What?"

Jim reached up with one hand and touched the skin right above Blair's upper lip. He pulled his hand away in what looked like slow motion, rubbing the tip of his finger against his thumb.

Both were a bright, deep red.

Blair tried to breathe, and he smelled it. Thick, metallic. "Jim," he said, fear slamming into him like a runaway truck. "Get me out of here."

"What I'm getting you is a room and a guard. And then I'm getting you the hell away from this investigation."

"You can't." Blair stood up, steadied himself. His head was spinning, but he could stand on his own, he was fine. "You can't, Jim, I'm this close. Look. I'll get checked out if that's what you want, but don't pull me off of this, damn it, you need me!"

Jim grabbed Blair by the shoulders and squeezed so tight it hurt, so tight there'd be bruises. His face was like a sculpture carved in a glacier, but his voice was rough and his breath was hot as Jim drew in close.

"You're right," he said. "I need you."

"Good," Blair answered, nodding, "Good, then--"

"I need you alive," Jim said. Reasonable. Almost calm.

And then he let go.

Blair sagged back against the table. Jim crossed to the door. From a distance Blair heard him calling for a doctor, heard someone responding, but he couldn't attach to it.

He'd blown it. He'd completely blown it.

There wasn't a damn thing wrong with him a Kleenex and a latte wouldn't fix, but it didn't matter, not to Jim, not when Blair was bleeding down the front of his face. He could argue all he wanted. It didn't matter. As far as his partner was concerned, the case was closed.

Blair was out of the game.

Which left Jim Ellison out there on his own.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Jim left him in the ER and didn't look back. Blair didn't expect anything less. He felt whited out. There was a Sandburg-shaped blank space in Jim's mind.

And one at his back. That was the one that made Blair's chest feel like somebody'd stepped on it. The argument part Jim would get over eventually if the flying-off-without-backup part didn't get him killed. He'd said he was going to the station, and that was fine, but after that he'd be off someplace else, and if he were by himself --

"Sorry," Blair said for the fifteenth time. The doctor was about his height and about thirty years his senior. His white hair was in disarray, and blue ink was leaking through the pocket of his white coat. Must've been a rough night.

Not bothering to look up from Blair's chart, the doctor frowned. "Your dedication to your work is admirable, but in my honest medical opinion, if you leave here now, you're an idiot."

"I know," Blair said again. He felt for the man, who looked like he'd hit the end of a pretty bad work day. Blair was the very color of empathy. "Sorry, Doctor --" he checked the nametag -- "Dr. McCoy, but I'm leaving. Just give me the stuff to sign, man. I had the lecture once this week already."

"You're aware your symptoms are indicative of brain trauma? That you could seriously--"

"Yes, yes, and yes. Look, I'll come back when I've done what I've got to do. I don't like the idea any more than you do, but I'm leaving, and I'm leaving now, so if you don't give me the papers in about two seconds they're not going to get signed at all because -- did I say this already? I'm leaving."

"Fine," McCoy handed over a clipboard and the pen that had been destroying his coat. "It's your body."

"Don't worry, I've got it under warranty." Blair signed quickly, ignoring the feel of disapproving eyes on him. Handing them back, he pasted on a smile. "Thanks, doc. Seriously, don't worry. I'm going to be just fine."

"You shouldn't be driving. At least call your partner--"

"Got it covered. Thanks." Blair grabbed McCoy's hand and shook it. "Really. You've been very concerned, and if I didn't have to be someplace else like right now I'd really appreciate that. So thanks." He shrugged into his jacket and flipped his hair out of the back of it.

With a wave, he ducked around the curtain and into the corridor. McCoy didn't call out for him, and nobody tried to stop him, not even when he barely missed knocking over a nurse on his way to the lobby. He fielded her glare with a silent but heartfelt apology from his own eyes and kept going.

Jim was long gone. Blair had expected that, only checking to confirm the fact. He pulled his jacket closed around his middle and crossed his arms in front of him. The cold wind cutting under concrete overhang hit him hard and made him shiver; grey clouds were piling up in the northern sky. His thigh ached a little, legacy of Quinn's bullet -- annoying, but a pretty fair barometer.

"Looks like rain."

Blair looked up. And up. And up. Then grinned. "Hey. Tell me you weren't sent here to keep an eye on me, man."

"All patients must be escorted from the premises by a member of the staff," Brandon said solemnly. His whites were clean and freshly pressed, but his eyes were bloodshot, and he leaned against one of the concrete columns for support. "They figured I was so big you wouldn't argue with me and so ugly you wouldn't try to get my phone number."

"You look thoroughly toasted, my friend. How many hours is this for you?"

"End of a very long sixteen. I'm heading home to hibernate for winter." Brandon shoved a few lank strands of hair out of his eyes. "Summer too, the way I feel."

"You shouldn't be driving."

"I shouldn't be standing, but Scotty's off duty and I forget where I parked the shuttle craft."

"Look, Brandon." Blair took a deep breath. "You've got a problem; I've got a problem. Why don't we solve both? You give me a lift downtown, and I'll drive us at least that far. You live pretty close to the station, right?"

"Just two blocks down. You can drive a stick?"

Blair grinned. "If it moves, I can drive it."

Brandon swallowed back a yawn and dug a set of keys out of his pocket. "You wreck my car and I'm going for the cops," he said. "I swear."

"I wreck your car, and you won't have to," Blair said. He caught the keys in the air and grinned. "If I damage property within five miles of the station, they'll be coming after us."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Jim pushed open the door of the office without knocking and dropped a small metal medallion on Simon's blotter. It landed with a solid thunk followed by a sweet chime as the chain pooled around it. Jim braced his hands wide apart on the edges of the desk and leaned in.

"That," he said, jerking his chin at the necklace, "was hanging on my rearview mirror when I left the hospital ten minutes ago."

Simon put down his pen and leaned back in his chair. "What is it?"

"St. Christopher's medal. He's the patron saint of boats, or something."

"Travelers," Simon said.

"Whatever. It's some Catholic thing."

"I thought you were Catholic."

"I was raised Catholic. I recovered. Look, Captain, this pretty firmly establishes me as Christopher. I wasn't in the hospital that long. Half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes tops. That's a very narrow window, which suggests to me a pretty close surveillance of my comings and goings. I left Sandburg at the hospital with a guard, but you know and I know --"

"It won't even slow Blair down."

"Not even a little bit. I figure he's going to be coming here. I need you to keep him off my neck. I gotta tell you, I've been having some flashbacks here."

"He doesn't need a babysitter, Jim, and he's not going to thank you for giving him one."

"He doesn't need another Lash on his hands, either. I give him a choice, he chooses to watch my back. He's damn good at it, and at any other time I'd want him right behind me, but that's just not going to work this time." Lowering his voice, Jim leaned in closer. "Look. When my senses act up, you glue me to my desk. All I'm asking is, you give him that same consideration. He's not fit for the streets in his condition."

"And you think he's going to buy that line of reasoning."

"Nope," Jim said. "But I was hoping you would, sir."

Simon closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and scrubbed his hands over his face. "I could've been an English teacher," he said. "I had a certificate."

Jim grinned. "You love the thrill, you could never give it up."

"You love the thrill. I love the pension and the dental coverage."

"The dental coverage ain't that great."

"Where are you going to be while I'm entertaining your Wondertwin?"

Jim picked up the medallion. "I've got a friend who runs an antique store down on 19th and Bay. This thing looks pretty old; I'm hoping he can tell me something about it. Anything, at this point. Short of parking myself in a dark lot at midnight with a slab of steak around my neck--"

"Which is not going to happen--"

"I know. Short of that, though, I'm out of ideas, and I'm out of leads. We might have to think about tying me to a hook before this is over."

"I'll say when it's time for that, Detective. Not you. Is that clear?"

"Crystal."

"And you're taking Joel with you. I'm not having you out there on your own."

"Fine. As long as he's ready to saddle up in two minutes, he's free to ride along."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Brandon drove a red Nissan Sentra. It looked like an '89, maybe earlier; it had angles where the later models had curves. It was boxy, and the paint on the hood was starting to fade to a weird pink shade, lined with rust-red. The laws of physics were obviously suspended in this vehicle, because Brandon Winters fit into the front passenger seat.

Blair slid the driver's seat forward, checked out the dash and the pedals, then started the engine. He listened, automatically diagnosing a loose fan belt, and shook his head. New cars. Nobody ever took care of them.

"Ready to roll?"

"Home, James," Brandon said, and Blair had to laugh.

Being in a car with Brandon was subtly different from being in a car with Jim. Easier, in a way. Except in the most abstract, humanitarian sense, Blair didn't give a damn about Brandon's relationship with his father, or even if he had one. He didn't feel any need to scratch the surface, to push for information, to find out things. He just rode along in the driver's seat, checking out the traffic, not even making conversation. He took the opportunity to enjoy the almost-stormy weather, to wonder if Rafe had gathered the files he'd asked for, and to think about what he was going to say to Jim. It looked like Brandon was sleeping.

He wasn't. Head thrown back over the top of the seat, legs folded up to his chest to make room for the dash, eyes closed -- he was the picture of exhaustion, but he wasn't asleep, and the closer they got to the station, the clearer that got. Blair wasn't about to go poking around in anybody's psyche after what happened at the hospital -- he liked keeping his blood on the inside, thanks -- but there was a pressure on him from the outside, steady and increasing, and that pressure was Brandon.

Because he couldn't help himself, Blair kept his eyes on the road but turned his focus to the side. "What's up?"

One eye cracked open in Blair's peripheral vision. "What're you, a Psychic Friend?"

"Jesus, can't a guy just be insightful anymore?"

The eye slid closed. "Forget about it," Brandon said easily. "Wake me up when we get there. Or when you're in a better mood. Whichever comes first."

Shame rose up in Blair's face, hot and red. "I didn't mean to--"

"No sweat."

"I can just tell something's bugging you. Since I've been working with the detectives at Major Crime, I've started noticing things more."

"And you're an anthropologist, so that helps." Brandon looked over, not bothering to lift his head from the back of the seat. Blair noted the grin, and the knots in the back of his neck eased up a little.

"Yeah, but I'm a participant-observer," he said, returning the grin. "So tell me what's up, huh?"

Brandon turned back to his own window. Blair listened to his silence and felt a kind of tension growing in it. It made him tense in sympathy; it made him nervous. "C'mon, Winters," he said. "Spill it."

"Jamie."

"Oh, man--"

"No, look. I was with her, I'm this huge guy, and I know how to take care of myself, you know?"

"Yeah, and you should've been able to protect her because you're this huge guy, and everybody knows how much good that does you when a psychopath clocks you one from behind."

"I wasn't even there, you know? I was already in class, I was already reading my fucking lecture notes. I should've been more alert."

"Being alert was Peterson's job, not yours. Brandon, you're a tough guy, okay? But you got slammed in the back of the head, and you were down before you knew what hit you. Do I have to do that thing where I ask you if you let her get snatched out of, what, laziness or something?"

"It's--"

"You were bored, you thought -- hey, why don't I let this sweet kid get kidnapped. I'll just relax my guard a little, and then when Mr. Nutball comes along, he can grab her, easy."

"Don't be stupid, Sandburg."

"Maybe you just didn't give a shit, huh? Maybe you just kind of suck as a care-giver, and that's why he got her."

"Jesus--"

"I'm so totally out of patience with this guilt crap everybody's laying on themselves, I could just--"

"Then stop the goddamn car, and you can walk to the fucking station!"

Blair looked over at Brandon, just a glance out of the corner of his eye. Guy was mad -- really, seriously pissed off. "Make me," he said. "Your wheels, man."

Brandon didn't say anything, and while the street slid past outside, the silence got thick. A few blocks later, never quite looking at Blair, Brandon started to laugh.

"You've got a hell of a lot of nerve, Sandburg."

Blair smiled out the windshield, keeping his eyes on the road. "Did that do any good?"

"I should hope to God so."

"Good. 'Cause we're here." He pulled up to the curb, shifted into neutral, and left the engine running as he climbed out. He met Brandon between the headlights, looking up to meet the man's eyes. "You want to get that fan belt checked out."

"I've been meaning to."

"That's what they all say."

"Look, Blair -- thanks, okay? I appreciate the shredding. I think I needed it."

Brandon stuck out a beefy hand, and Blair took it, unsmiling. "Just don't forget it. Pissing off really big guys is more of a hobby than a profession with me, you know?"

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Cool. Thanks for the lift. Drive safe on the way home, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am." Brandon saluted sharply, rounded to the driver's side, and folded himself into the car. "I'm only a few blocks away, over on Broad Street. You should come by sometime. Shoot some hoops or something."

"With you? Winters, you're like fifteen feet tall. How fair is that?"

"Hey, I'd spot you a few."

"Generous guy." Blair waved him off with a grin. "Go. Sleep. I'll grab your number from the report if I start to feel masochistic."

"Wuss," Winters said. He gunned the engine and zipped out into traffic.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


"Jer?"

"In the back -- hang on a sec, look around, don't steal anything--"

"It's Jim Ellison, Jerry. Take your time."

A crash sounded, and Jim sorted out the damage automatically -- wood onto concrete, some scratching, maybe a crack. He winced. Hoped it wasn't anything too expensive.

The shop itself was littered with the too-expensive. Nothing within sight appealed to Jim at all. The wood was too dark and too scratched and too ripe, somehow. Stuff that old could never belong to just one person, and Jim liked to own his stuff, not just share quarters with it. Jerry Dawson dealt mainly in carpentry and books, but there was a glass cabinet next to the cash register filled with the gawdiness of ages past. Jim peered in through the smudged surface, cataloguing gold rings, silver rings, brooches, lapel pins -- all set tastefully in black velvet, polished to a high gleam. There were several necklaces, too -- heavy chains lined with semi-precious stones. The blue ones were sort of pretty.

"That one matches your eyes, Jimmy-boy."

Jim looked up, smiling. He'd known Jerry since he was a kid, doing odd jobs around the store. Jerry hadn't really needed the help, but Jim had needed the distraction. He'd worked for Dawson five years, on and off, until he graduated from high school. That was a long time ago; Dawson was showing his age. He was still strong, though -- his back straight, sleeves of a flannel shirt rolled up over lean, ropy forearms. His eyes were clear and steady; only his face and the backs of his hands had suffered.

"Hey, Jer."

"You looking for work? I thought you were some hot-shot detective now." Dawson's eyes were narrow with humor, brown slits at the center of crumpled crow's feet.

"I'm not here to sand anything or polish anything, Jerry. I have a couple questions about a--"

"Oh, questions. Couldn't just drop by to say hello to an old man in his declining years. I'm about done up with the arthritis and the rheumatiz, and--"

"Rheum-- Christ. You never had arthritis a day in your life, Dawson. You're barely sixty. Give it up."

"That's how you show respect for your elders?"

Jim grinned. "The ones that deserve it."

"You always were a punk, Ellison." Dawson stuck out a hand, and Jim grabbed it, squeezing hard. "What can I do for you?"

Jim held up his left hand and opened it; the medal dropped, halted by the chain slung around his middle finger. "I need to know what you can tell me about this."

"Needs cleaning."

"Yeah, I got that part. Thanks. What else?"

Dawson took it; his hands were steady and careful, avoiding the face of the medallion and easing carefully down the length of the chain. He stared for a moment, turning it over in his fingers, then reached into a drawer in the desk beside the display case. He came up with a magnifying glass that looked about as old as he was.

"Losing the eyes, Jerry?"

"You watch your mouth."

_Welcome to your childhood, Jimmy._ Jim shook his head, smiled to himself, and watched his mouth.

After a few minutes of study, Jerry turned and pulled a book from a tall, dusty crate behind him. It was a photo album, and after flipping through several pages, Jerry stopped and laid it open on the counter, facing Jim. He dropped the medal onto a picture near the top of the right-hand page, no longer quite so careful.

Jim pushed it aside and looked at the picture. "Looks like the same medal."

"It is the same medal. Check out the indentation just below the staff -- see that?"

"It matches the picture. Where'd you get this?"

"I owned it. Sold it with a bunch of other stuff to a guy over on Bay last month. It's just junk jewelry -- worthless stuff, but pretty enough for the yuppie trade."

"Why'd you take pictures of it?"

"I have pictures of everything that comes through here. You may not have noticed, but this ain't exactly the kindest section of town anymore; you know how often I get your boys from Robbery in here pawing through my stuff? I started taking pictures last year to minimize the damage."

"They know you're not a fence, Jer."

"They know I'm not fencing stuff on purpose. They just don't have a lot of faith that I always know the difference. Some of these other stores are so sloppy, they buy anything that walks through the door and looks valuable, no questions asked. I get receipts, Jim -- I keep records. I don't want stolen property flowing through my space."

Jim laid a hand on his friend's arm. "You're a good guy."

"Damn straight I am." Some of the indignation had eased out of his voice; not all.

"For what it's worth, I don't think this was stolen. I think somebody just picked it up, probably at your friend's store, and decided to play games with it. You're still clean."

"What kind of games?"

"It showed up on my rear-view mirror earlier today."

"You know better than to leave your doors unlocked this day and age, boy."

"Yeah." Jim ran his fingers along the gold length of chain. "I do."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Steeling himself, Blair rapped on the door to Simon's office. "Hey, Simon. Rafe, you got those--"

"Sandburg." Simon was smiling. That was definitely not a good sign. The kinds of things that made Simon smile rarely made anybody else happy.

"Uh, yeah. Hi. Rafe, did you get--"

"You're supposed to be in the hospital, Sandburg. And yet you're here."

"They let me go, Captain." Blair held up his hands in a universal gesture of innocence. "Of course, I came straight here, knowing you guys wouldn't want me just wandering around on my own."

"Of course you did. I notice you don't say they released you."

Swallowing hard, Blair back-pedaled. "Same thing, huh? I mean, all the paperwork is taken care of, and there's really nothing wrong with me a little deep breathing won't cure, and anyway, no harm no foul. Right?"

"For the sake of my amusement, Sandburg, ask me why it is that I'm letting you stand in my doorway and spout crap at me instead of packing you back off to the hospital you just escaped from."

"Now, that's a little harsh." Blair studiously ignored the grin Rafe was trying to hide and looked at Simon with wide eyes. "I didn't--"

"I said ask me!"

"Ah." Blair swallowed again. "Why?"

"Because," Simon said, "I made a solemn promise to your partner. Do you know what I promised him?"

"Uh, no."

"I promised him that if you sneaked out of that hospital and showed up here like some kid who doesn't know what's good for him, I would plant you at a desk and have you watched every second until he got here to deal with whatever was left after I got done with you. And all that's just assuming you don't stroke out or something, which a very kind Dr. McCoy from Cascade County informs me is not entirely outside the realm of possibility."

"You called him?"

"He called me. You left a fax on one of their machines."

"I knew I couldn't trust that guy. Is there no such thing as doctor-patient confidentiality in this town?"

"I'm a skilled interrogator, Sandburg, it's how I put food on the table. Besides, you really sure you want to talk about trust?"

"Well." Blair shifted his weight a little in the interest of a swift retreat. "No."

"Then this is what you're going to do. You're going to go out there and sit down at your desk, and you're not gonna move more than it takes to turn a page until Jim Ellison walks in those doors. You have to take a piss, you call me and ask first."

"What, I get an escort?"

"As a matter of fact, you do."

Blair nodded. He could accept reality, and the reality was, he was nailed. "Okay, Simon. Just -- plant me with those files I asked for, okay? Rafe?"

"They're already on your desk," Rafe said. "Right next to the vanilla latte."

"Oh, man. I owe you."

"Yeah, you do. Three-fifty. What do they mix in those things, anyway? Gold?"

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Ellison got into the truck, and the black guy with him asked a question. It didn't matter what the question was, or the answer. He knew where they were going, and he knew how to get there. He knew how to get there first.

It was getting darker and colder. Alisha would start to worry about him before too long. He'd moved her to the cabin, but he had to leave her tied. She wasn't all the way with him, not yet. She said the right things, but her eyes gave her away. Beautiful, lying eyes. It made an ache in his chest, a warm kind of bitterness, like longing. He wanted her trust; he knew he couldn't have it.

It would be the same with Blair.

He took back alleys the truck couldn't navigate. He knew the area, knew the streets and the rooftops, and he could find all the places the street lights didn't quite cover. He kept to the shadows as the sun went down, and he got to the shop on Bay in time to watch Ellison and his friend pull up in back.

There was only one door for customers, and it was around front. Ellison climbed out of the cab of his truck and leaned in to say something to the passenger. When he pulled back, he slapped the top of the roof, grinned widely, and swung the door shut.

Ten paces and Ellison was around the corner, out of his friend's line of sight. There was wind in the trees, on the streets, sending leaves and litter chasing down the pavement in waves. It felt like cool water rushing over his skin, a ghost touch. He had to breathe deep to take it into him, to let it feed him. The friend went down easy, with a soft grunt that mixed in with creaking of branches overhead and the distant hum of traffic over the freeway. He left the body face down on the ground beside the truck, blood flowing red and dark over the grimy pavement.

Fifteen paces, and Ellison was almost to the last turn. He would have to run. The cop would hear him.

He ran.

Ellison turned and had time for a moment of surprise. Only seconds, but the man's eyes were magnificent in those seconds, wild and deep and blue.

And then Ellison was down. One blow, as his arms came up. Brutal, sudden. A crunch of bone, harder than he'd meant to hit, but still good. Still solid.

Perfect.

The wind was gentler now. It lifted his hair away from his forehead, cooled his face. He turned into it, lips stretching into a smile. He loved the night. The night had a way of talking to him.

He hoisted Ellison onto his shoulder in a fireman's carry. The weight of the man felt good. Muscles bunched and extended, and he huffed once from exertion, staggering to the left. Gravel crunched under his feet before he steadied himself.

Darkness hid them, but in this neighborhood there was little need for stealth. No one would interfere with him, and anyone who remembered him would remember too little, too late. The night sky sang in quiet silver moonlight, and he listened carefully, his smile widening. He remembered something; it almost made him laugh.

"You're a tough guy, okay, Ellison?" He grinned, squeezing tightly before shifting the dead weight of Ellison's body into the passenger's side of his own truck. "You're tough. But you got slammed in the back of the head, you know?" His smile widened. "You were down before you knew what hit you."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


What he needed was right in his hands. Blair knew it. He held the file on top of both palms, just over the cluttered desktop, and knew what he needed was there. Something was humming along at the back of his mind, some kind of mental machineworks. It was like cramming for an exam, reading that file, and when he had it all in his head, he was ready. All he needed was the right trigger, and everything would come together.

But the trigger wasn't here.

The door to Simon's office, twenty feet away, was open. He could see Simon through it, on the phone, speaking softly - the Banks version of softly. Someone important, probably. He reserved that tone for the brass. Every now and then Simon would look up and catch Blair looking. Blair didn't want to know what would happen to him if he tried to sneak out. It wouldn't be pretty.

On the other side of him, one desk away, Rafe was pretending to work. What he was actually doing, though, and you didn't have to be a sentinel or a guide to know it, was watching Blair work. His eyes were red and tired, and he'd grown some wrinkles overnight. Crow's feet, spreading out from the corners. He was too young for them. He needed to go home.

It hit Blair suddenly that he didn't know if Rafe really had anybody to go home to in Cascade. He was an honorary Brown at every holiday, and he seemed happy enough to go home at the end of a shift, but he could be living in a cardboard box for all Blair knew. It bugged him, that ignorance. He should know this guy.

"Hey, Rafe," he said softly. The man's head jerked up like it was on a string.

"Yeah? You need some more coffee?"

"No, man. Three lattes is my limit. I was just thinking, maybe you want to go home. It's late."

"It was late this time yesterday; I didn't go home then." He looked back down at his papers and pretended to work even harder.

He wasn't going anywhere.

"Rafe."

"Sandburg, no. I'm not taking you out of this room, let alone out of the station, let alone anyplace else. Simon would have my ass stuffed and hung on his wall."

"Yeah, no shit." Blair shook his head and looked back into the captain's office. "I don't need to leave, and I've got a great watchdog. I just need some stuff from the loft. I know Banks isn't gonna let me go get it, but--"

"Is this related to the case?"

"No, man, I just miss my security blanket."

Rafe waved him off. "Sorry. I had to ask."

"Sure you did," Blair said. But it stung anyway.

"Look, tell me what you need. I'll get it for you."

He hadn't expected to get that far. He thought fast. "You know that bookshelf you and H made for me last Christmas? The one by my door?"

"Yeah, the one with the shitty stain job."

"I like the stain job. I like the shelves. I don't want to talk about Henry's qualifications as a carpenter. On the third shelf of that case there's a stack of books with some papers on top. I need those papers." The lie came fluently from his lips. Dishonesty as a second language. He felt a minor twinge of guilt and stomped it down. "Shouldn't take you more than twenty minutes this long past rush hour."

Tossing off a mock salute, Rafe grabbed his keys and left. One watcher down.

Blair took care to walk slowly and easily across the bullpen, knowing Simon's eyes were on him. His knock was perfunctory; Simon was staring right at him. "What do you want, Sandburg?"

"Ah," he said, looking down at the floor. He managed a blush that came from adrenaline rather than embarrassment, but it worked. "Bathroom," he said.

"For Christ's sake--"

"You said to ask."

"Five minutes, Sandburg," Simon said, tapping his watch. "I don't see your shiny white face in five minutes, I'm putting out an APB. You hear me?"

"Simon--"

"I said, do you hear me, Sandburg?"

"Yes, sir," Blair said. He didn't have to fake the misery in his voice. He hated lying to Simon about an order of magnitude more than he hated lying to Rafe. It was a hierarchical thing, or maybe it was a paternal thing. Whatever it was, it made him feel like a total asshole.

It didn't change his mind.

Five minutes saw him in the parking garage. He figured Simon was checking the door pretty regularly by then. Two more minutes and he had Simon's car purring warmly. The key was a loaner, a temporary reward for teaching Daryl to drive in his spare time. Simon claimed his nerves just couldn't take it. Jim had offered to do the teaching, but Simon had just looked at him, looked at Jim's third truck in as many years, and let the silence speak for itself. "Don't teach him anything stupid," Simon had said to Blair, handing over the key reluctantly. "I know where you live."

He could kiss that key goodbye after this was all over. And probably any hope of ever seeing daylight again.

Ten minutes and he was in traffic, halfway to the hospital. He had police-band on, and Simon hadn't made good on his threat. Indifference? He doubted it. He probably just hadn't finished yelling yet.

The hospital files plus the school files, that was the key. They were right where he'd left them. All he had to do was put it together. Every light he sped under, the green ones and the yellow ones and the two that were red, he got closer to the blazing center of knowledge he'd felt growing inside him all day. Somewhere along the way it started to rain, and he adjusted his lights and his eyes but not his speed. Jim was on the trail of a killer out there, and maybe that killer was also on the trail of Jim, and while that was a really bad thing, it also left Blair room to maneuver. Room, and time that was getting way too short.

He parked legally because he might need the car later. He was careful to lock the door. He even looked both ways as he crossed the Emergency Room parking area.

And then he walked fast, faster even than the long strides that always kept him right beside Jim. Faster than he thought he could walk, pushing himself.

He hit the doors running. And then he ran right past the elevators and took the stairs two at a time.

He was close.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Jim hurt, but the pain wasn't the worst part. The pain was just the beginning. There was a warmth at the back of his skull, an itch that meant drying blood.

He couldn't move his hands. The thought skittered across the surface of his mind, vaguely alarming, distantly unpleasant. He couldn't feel his hands, and that was worse. He struggled, and the pain in his head fell sideways, blossomed red and vicious and bright behind his eyes. His eyes.

Jim opened them. He couldn't see. He opened them wider, blinked, he was certain he blinked, but there was no light. He pushed, strained to see, saw nothing.

He was blind.

Instantly, they crowded into his mind. Blair's Golden Fire People. His mind's eye saw clearly. _His_ Golden Fire People, not Blair's. Blair had borrowed them for a waking nightmare, then put them back where he'd found them. The light crowded into his mind, shifting luminous shapes. And he still couldn't see.

"Blair," he said. The word came out soft and ragged. Weak. Weaker than he ought to be. He was lost, couldn't find himself, couldn't even find his own strength. He was in a chair, a wooden chair, bound and helpless. He flinched from the knowledge, but it wouldn't be evaded. He was helpless.

"Blair's not here, Detective Ellison."

His head snapped up and sideways, blind eyes searching through the black. "_Jamie_," he said.

"He leaves the gag off if I don't scream," she said. "I screamed a lot at first, but there's nobody to hear. Sometimes the gag makes it hard to breathe. I got scared when he left, you know, what if I suffocate. So I quit screaming."

"Jamie," Jim said again. Her voice was so soft. He could hear the damage in her vocal chords, hear her breath scraping over them. He could hear how hard she'd screamed. He couldn't find anything but fear for her, but he knew he should be proud. Later, when they were safe, he'd be proud.

"I'm here, Detective," she said. "It's okay. He's gone for a while. He said he had to get something from town."

"I'm...not thinking too clear, Jamie." Hard words.

"He hit you pretty good."

"You--" The question slipped away from him, spinning just out of reach. There was something wrong. He shouldn't hurt so bad. He should be able to think. He had to _think_.

"It's okay." Jamie's voice was muffled, pointed away from him. "I think it's all going to be over soon."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Blair's hands felt odd.

He looked at them, noting the fine, dark hairs, the tan skin, the solid square construction of them. Worker's hands, callused and competent from years of outdoorsmanship -- not the kind of hands you'd expect to find on an academic. They were strong, but he could barely feel them; they were distant and numb. Cold.

He tensed his fingers, curled them up into his palms, and clenched them tight, watched the tendons leap into sharp relief in his wrists and forearms. He'd touched the man with these hands and felt no resonance, no warning.

His lips curled into something uncomfortable, something too close to a snarl. Blair Sandburg, the Guide Triumphant -- he hadn't had a fucking clue. With effort, he forced his hands to lie flat against the desk, on either side of the file he'd been scanning. It was that, or watch them shake.

The voice behind him, soft and feminine as it was, scared him half out of his skin; he was on his feet so fast his chair skidded away from him, almost tipping over.

"Jesus!" he snapped, sagging back against the table. "You always sneak up on people like that?"

Under a fall of curling bangs, one elegant eyebrow arched high. "I knocked twice, Mr. Sandburg," Sarah said.

She didn't hide her amusement very well, but she was pretty and soft-voiced, and she liked him well enough that he wasn't terribly offended. "Sorry," he muttered, turning back to the table. "I'm just on edge."

"So I see. Are you all right?"

"Not terribly, no."

"Shall I call someone for you?"

Concern had replaced amusement in her voice, and Blair felt absurdly grateful. His hands clenched again, once, then relaxed as he put himself together. He gathered up the file he'd scattered across the table, then turned back to the nurse and smiled briefly. "I'll call myself," he said. "Thanks, though. You've been very helpful."

As he passed her, she put a hand out and stopped him with a light touch to his arm.

"You didn't ask what I wanted," she said, smiling. "A call just came in from the Cascade PD. They're sending a car for you, said it would be out front in five minutes. You're to be waiting when it arrives; the man on the phone was very insistent."

"Who was it?" he asked. He didn't bother being afraid. Simon or Jim, made no difference -- either way, he was in deep.

"A Detective Ellison. He also suggested that in the future, you make sure your cell phone's turned on." Her smile widened into a grin. "I think he'd been trying to reach you for a while."

Blair tried to smile. It was a pathetic effort. "It was nice knowing you, Sarah," he said.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


It was raining seriously now. The light sprinkle drifting down at midday had turned into a downpour that was almost biblical. Rafe drove fast but carefully and hoped Sandburg had done the same.

"He took my car."

"I know, sir." Rafe didn't look over at his passenger; he just eased down on the gas, and tried to remember how to pray. The streets were slick as glass, and every time he let up on the speed, Simon looked at him. That look kept the gas pedal flush with the carpet.

There hadn't been any papers on the third shelf of the third-rate bookcase he and H had made for Sandburg. It hadn't come as much of a surprise. Sandburg got this frantic, burning-eyed stare when he was onto something, and he lied with the grace and skill of a five-year-old. Simon's call came in before Rafe even made it back to his car, a clipped order to return to base in a voice that killed any questions he might've asked.

Simon never answered those questions, anyway. Not about Sandburg and Ellison.

"He took my fucking _car_."

"I know. Captain, I could still call in an APB...."

The glare took off the thickest part of Rafe's skin. "I'm not putting out an APB on my own fucking _car_, Detective."

"Of course not," Rafe said, nodding vigorously. "Sir." He thought of the black angels, lined up neat on Simon's desk, and realized he'd never really heard Simon cuss before. He thought of the captain as a religious man; something in the way he took his divorce and the way he raised his boy. And the neat way those angels always lined up. "Do you believe in God, Simon?"

His eyes cut over for a second and caught Simon staring at him, eyebrows somewhere near his hairline. "Sorry, Captain. That was out of line."

"What the hell kind of question is that?"

"Sorry."

"You know what I believe in?"

"No, sir...."

"I believe in the infallible justice of the universe," Simon said.

"Sure."

"I believe we pay for what we do, and I believe we pay those most fit to collect payment."

Rafe nodded. He didn't look over again.

"I believe Jamie Brown is going to be okay. I believe Blair Sandburg is going to be okay. And I believe, to the very bottom of these very nice shoes, Detective Rafe, that he's going to pay very dearly for stealing my car. I'm gonna see to that personally."

"Yes, sir."

"And if there is a God, may he show no mercy to any sonofabitch who tries to get in my way."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


The stairs were quicker than the elevators, and besides, Blair wasn't taking any chances. He skidded over the landings and vaulted as many of the steps as he could. He came out on the second floor, stopping only long enough to drop off the files he'd copied and give his cell phone a shot at redeeming his honor. He flipped it open; the dial tone was immediate and cheering. He shook his head as he speed-dialed Jim's number. He wanted to tell Jim what he'd learned, and he wanted to say he didn't need a lift. Simon would probably want his car back.

A polite, aluminum voice informed him the customer he was trying to reach was either unavailable or out of range. The irony of the situation did not escape him.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Centering himself, he tried another number. This one rang twice before an operator answered; Blair told her who he was and waited while she transferred him. Another two rings at the number he should've tried in the first place...and then its owner answered.

"Banks."

"Uh...hi, Simon."

Silence rolled out of the small phone like a low-pressure system.

"It's Sandburg."

"I know who you are," Simon snapped. "What I don't know is what the hell you think you're doing. Do you have any idea -- do you have any concept at all, Sandburg -- of exactly how bad I'm going to hurt you?"

"Listen, Simon -- you know I've got this head trauma thing going on here--"

"That may save your life. It won't save your ass."

Blair pushed out of the stairwell and into the hospital's entryway. The walls went from institutional grey to institutional white between blinks. Nobody was waiting for anybody in the circular drive. Slow day at Cascade County.

He went outside. The rain had faded to a sprinkle that faded to fog; it was quiet, still, dark -- cold. He shoved one hand deep into the pocket of his jacket and hunched his shoulders against the chill. "Would you like to know who the Blade is, Captain Banks?"

Another pause, but of a different length and quality. At the other end of the line, Simon drew a sharp breath and didn't let it out.

"Simon?"

"What did you find?" _Rat-a-tat-tat_. Words like automatic gunfire. He had Simon's attention now, a hundred percent of it, aimed as true as a laser sight.

"It was right there, Simon. I can't believe we missed it. We all missed it, we were so fucking busy looking at the case from every angle, you know, we forgot to compare angles, we forgot to put it all together."

"Put _what_ together, Sandburg?"

"The school files and the hospital files. I laid them out side by side, and it was all right there. We thought the lowest common denominator had to be a school thing or a ritual thing, right? But it wasn't. I mean, it was, it was a ritual thing, yeah, but there's another thing the victims all had in common."

Headlights knifed through the fog, high and wideset.

"What thing? Damn it, Blair, if you don't come up with some solid information for me in about five seconds I'm going to personally make sure the next time you see the squad room, you see it from behind a mop and bucket. Sandburg?"

"Oh, man. I'm toast. I thought he was sending a squad car."

"Who's sending a squad car?"

"Jim. He sent himself instead. Look, Simon, I gotta go. He's pulling up now. We'll come back to the station and fill you in there, okay?"

"No, Sandburg, it's not okay. I'm about two minutes away from the hospital, which is where you better pray you are when I get there. You are at the hospital, right?"

"Yeah, I'm out front. Jim's just pulling in. You want to meet us in the lobby?"

"What I want," Simon said shortly, "would get me arrested."

In spite of the tension knotted through him, Blair grinned. Simon Banks was immutable. "See ya in five," he said, and shut his phone off.

He was still smiling when the truck rolled to a stop by the curb, its windows fogged and still beaded up with rain. The defrost hadn't worked right for weeks, but Jim was certain he could fix it on his own, and Blair -- who actually could fix it on his own -- wasn't allowed to touch it. He was smiling when he opened the door and leaned in to check Jim's mood, smiling when the blast of useless warm air washed over him.

And then he wasn't smiling anymore. He wasn't breathing anymore.

"Hi, Blair," Brandon said. He had blood on his hands, drying in the heat, and he was smiling enough for the both of them. "Wanna go for a ride?"

  
   


* * *

  
   


Sandburg was gone when they reached the hospital. A nurse named Sarah confirmed that he'd been there, that he'd asked for files, that he'd been tense and preoccupied when he left. Rafe's hands hurt from clenching his fists so tightly, and his eyes burned. Sleep was not part of his world now. He'd spoken to H on the phone, just a few words after breakfast, and that voice was a memory to keep a man awake for a lifetime.

Ellison was gone, too, and Taggart with them. It was anyone's guess whether the three of them were together. With H spectacularly off the case, it was down to Rafe and Simon.

And Rafe and Simon had nothing.

"Here you are," Sarah said; Rafe jerked his head up from close contemplation of the floor. She had pretty eyes, and she was more than a little bit worried about Blair Sandburg. The guy had a chance there, assuming they could find him.

He took the files out of her hands, thanked her, and waited with the bare minimum of politeness for her to excuse herself.

The conference room Sarah had offered them was uncomfortably cold, uncomfortably clean, with the sole exception of the table. It was littered with school files. Five sets. Four dead girls. Rafe laid the hospital files out alongside them, pairing up the names. It was the last thing Sandburg had said, and the only thing they had, now, to go on. School files and hospital files, and it was there in front of them all along, right? That's what Sandburg had said.

"They wouldn't just take off on their own," Simon said. He rubbed at his eyes like they hurt him, his elbows propped up on the edge of the conference table.

"Wouldn't be the first time."

"Not after a call like that. Sandburg's got a head on his shoulders."

"Yeah," Rafe said. "But Ellison's got reach on him."

Simon snorted. "Sandburg can handle Ellison, but I don't buy either of them messing around on this one, and Taggart--"

"Yeah." Simon didn't have to say it. Sandburg or Ellison, a guy could see taking off on their own. Running down a hunch, coming back with the goods and a pair of guilty faces -- not likely, but the possibility existed.

Taggart, though, he was no cowboy. He was old school. He didn't go out of touch. If Joel Taggart was missing, Joel Taggart was _missing_.

"Sandburg said it was here," Rafe said.

"Sandburg's mind...."

"He said it was here."

Simon didn't say anything -- just looked at Rafe, exhaustion etched in every line of his face. After a few seconds, Simon nodded. He reached for the file closest to him, pulled it and its companion toward him.

Rafe did the same. Sandburg's quick and bizarre mind had made a connection, and he'd left them a trail of breadcrumbs. It was up to them to follow it.

_He said it was here._

Breathing quick and shallow, Rafe opened up the first folder.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


This time, Blair had to care about the guy riding in the front seat beside him. He cared about Brandon Winters' father and his childhood and his mood; he cared about it all. It was a selfish concern, but it was a real one, and the urge was there -- to push in, to find out what he could. To fix.

Brandon's eyes were wide, and he was smiling, smiling like his world was clean and new. He held the wheel with a light touch, shifted cleanly, came to smooth, gentle stops, and started back up slow and easy. Handled the truck like a pro. He had Blair's cell phone and a gun on the seat beside his thigh, but he didn't need a gun to threaten Blair.

He had Jim's blood on his hands.

"They're both fine," were Brandon's first words after Blair climbed into the car. "Ellison and the cop who was with him. I didn't hurt either of them."

Blair looked Brandon's hands and said nothing.

"I had to hit Taggart. Knock him out. Had to hit Ellison, too. I checked both of them though, and they're fine. I really am an orderly, you know."

"Great," Blair answered. "I'm sure you're totally certified to change bed pans, man, but until I see Jim and Joel I'm gonna have to reserve judgment on your first aid skills."

"I'm good." Brandon smiled again, warm and friendly. Inviting Blair to share a joke. "I taught a class."

"I know."

"The little girl's okay, too," Brandon offered. "I don't hurt them, Blair."

Blair turned away and said nothing.

Brandon drove. He took them out of Cascade; not far, just far enough to get into the trees. Half an hour of silence and Blair did nothing, his hands knotted against his thighs. The wheels of the truck sang on wet pavement, and traffic got lighter, and finally they turned off the freeway. They turned several times. With each turn Blair's teeth clenched a little tighter, and something in his mind tightened, made a fist. He wanted to smash it into Brandon, wanted to rip out what was wrong with him, but he couldn't. The push of it wouldn't come to him.

And he had to wait, anyway, until Brandon took him to where he needed to be.

"I don't get it, man," Blair said finally. "Why Jim? You never took a guy before; why now?"

Brandon smiled. The windshield reflected the tenderness of it back at Blair; it curled his stomach into a small, burning knot of tension. "Not him, Blair. You. You're my Christopher."

"What is with you and the ritzy names?"

"Christopher was the patron saint of travelers, you know? And the name means Christ-bearer. You know the story?"

"Great. A Jesus-complex."

"Come on, you make me sound like some kind of freak, Blair. I don't think I'm Jesus or anything. I'm just noting a parallel here. Jesus was sent by God to deliver the souls of men from the stain of their sins, right? But that was back when people had a fighting chance on this planet, back when families took care of their own and saw that the next generation was fairly civilized. These days a decent soul, a good soul...it doesn't stand a chance. The world is too much with us."

The guy was like George Bush and Jerry Falwell and Ted Bundy, all rolled into one mind-fucked, poetry-quoting megalomaniac. "So you're what, you're relieving them from the burden of our evil society? This is all about the death of family values?" Blair's hands tensed on his thighs, white-knuckled.

Brandon glanced over, and that look was there again. "You're a good guy, Blair," he said. "A good man. That's why I need you. I'm taking Jamie across the river tonight, just like Christopher took Jesus."

Blair laughed, and the laugh was more than a little hysterical even to his own ears. This wasn't gonna end well for anybody; he might as well go out swinging. "I thought I was Christopher. Is your psychosis interfering with your casting?"

"I take her." Brandon's face was still and serene. "The other side is better. Then after I take her, you take me."

"And what does that make Jim? He doesn't get a nifty title?"

Brandon shrugged. "You love him."

"I'm a very loving guy."

"I know," Brandon said. "That's why you came with me. That's why I needed Jim."

"He's the bait? That's it? You hit him over the head and cart him off to the woods, and it's not even about him? Man, that's not gonna be good for his self-esteem."

Brandon laughed. He laughed for a long time, while Blair's gut churned and his heart went dead in his chest and every part of him tried, independently of the others, to break free of his will and wreak grievous harm on the murderer beside him.

"Smartass," Brandon said when he could talk again. "I wish we could be friends."

Sitting there, monstrous and alien on Jim's side of the truck, grinning with so much kindness and affection -- he was outside of Blair's understanding, a joke from the universe with a surreal and ugly punchline. It was hard even to be angry; it'd be like yelling at bad weather. Blair closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of the seat, relaxing into the care of Jim's shock absorbers. The road deteriorated as they drove, and in the absence of encouragement, Brandon fell into a tense quiet.

Five minutes later, lighted windows sprang up around a curve. Brandon pulled in, headlights sweeping across a small, leaf-covered clearing.

The cabin was tiny. More of a shack than anything else. Trees pressed right up to the edge of it on three sides, covering it in shadow. There were two windows, uncurtained, and inside Blair could make out vague shapes of furniture. A flickering of fire.

"Time to go, Blair," Brandon said. His voice was soft and caring. Blair felt as if he were covered in oil, just listening to it.

"What are you?" he said.

"Don Quixote. Maybe a little Jim Jones. I don't know, Blair. I just know what I have to do, you know?"

"You don't have to do anything."

Brandon laughed. "Wrong-o, Round-eye. Right now, I have to go inside and check your friend's head. I hit him pretty hard, I guess. You coming?"

He got out of the car, taking the phone and the gun, leaving the keys. For a second, Blair just sat there and watched him go. Brandon didn't look back, and he didn't hurry. The keys were a faint silver glint in the darkness. Blair reached out and touched them. They were cold. He had his own set of keys in his pocket; those were warm.

He thought about it. He couldn't help it, just for a second. He thought about it, and he thought about Jim, and about Jamie.

And then he unhooked his seatbelt, and followed Brandon inside.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


"Dear God."

Simon looked up. Rafe's voice was sharp, and it didn't sound much like a prayer. The words had been swimming before his eyes for the last ten minutes, and Simon was glad for an excuse to change his focus.

Across the table, Rafe was still and white as a statue.

"What've you got?"

"He was right." Rafe pushed back and let his hands fall to his sides. "Sandburg was right. We just looked for the wrong thing."

"Don't get cryptic on me, Detective. I've had enough of that shit for one day."

Rafe nodded. He motioned Simon over to his side of the table, then moved out of the way. "We checked for similarities in their injuries," he said. "And we checked for physical patterns -- height, weight, coloring. That's all in the hospital files."

"Which we've read a hundred times."

"Right. And in the school files, we looked for classes they might've shared, and we looked for any teachers they might have in common, any clubs they might have joined together."

Simon took a deep breath and reigned in his temper. "Came up empty there, too."

"Right. We also looked for extracurricular activities not related to school, with no success. But look here -- look at this notation at the bottom of the school files. Right there, middle of the first page."

Simon looked where Rafe pointed -- and suddenly found it hard to breathe. "Jesus Christ."

"It's in all of them. Every single one of them is certified to perform CPR, Simon. How many teenage girls learn how to do that?"

"The link is at the hospital. The CPR class."

"We find out who taught that class, and we have our guy."

Simon stood up. His blood was pumping again. "Then let's go get him."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Blair couldn't breathe and look at Jim Ellison, not the way Jim looked now. His eyes were clear and blank, focused on nothing. Or maybe everything; this was Jim after all, maybe that was it. Maybe he was just focused on everything there was. His head was turned toward the door, and his lips were pale, thinned out into an angry line.

There was blood on his shirt, a lot of it, dried to a dark maroon. It trailed from the back of his neck into the collar of his sweater, clashing with the blue. Blair's eyes tracked it; for a second, he was close to zoning himself.

"Jim," he said.

"Blair." No surprise in Jim's voice; his hearing was up to speed. One point in their favor. "Check Jamie."

"I'm okay," she said, and Blair looked at the bed, and when he saw her, a sound came out of his throat, a sound he couldn't stop and couldn't bear to make.

Thin as she was, she barely made a hump under the blankets. They covered everything but her face. Blue roses, pale blue roses and pale blue sprays of wildflowers. He hadn't even seen her when he came in, hadn't even known she was there. Hoped she was and hoped she wasn't, but he hadn't looked for her, not once his eyes hit Jim. It was crazy, but he couldn't prevent the thought: they matched, her blankets and Jim's sweater, they matched right down to the blood stains.

"I'm okay," she said again, softer, and a trickle of red formed where her lower lip cracked under the words.

One eye was hugely swollen, purple and red overlaying dark brown skin. No way she could see out of it, no way it could be whole under all that damage. Blair swallowed nothing, his mouth dry as chalk. Both lips were split in several places, and her jaw was purpled, too. Her good eye looked out at him, bright and clear, wet.

"You're okay," he answered her. His voice was heavy and thick; he wanted to cry because she couldn't, but he couldn't, either. His eyes went back to Jim, and it was easier to really look at him now. "We're all okay."

"Sit, Blair," Brandon said from behind him.

There was a chair next to Jim's, just like it. Blair didn't move.

"Come on, Blair, it's not like I'm gonna hurt you or anything. You're dead on your feet, I just want you to take a rest."

"What kind of sick, psychopathic--"

"Fine, fine, whatever. Stand. But when you fall over, don't come crying to me about it. I offered." There was a warm, tolerant look in Brandon's eyes that turned Blair's stomach cold. "You heard me offer, right, Jim?"

"I heard you," Jamie said.

Brandon nodded. "Good girl."

The cold turned to ice. Jamie was passing Survival 101 with flying colors. She was a great kid, a fantastic, smart, amazing kid, and Blair was going to kill the man behind him.

"I brought you a coke," Brandon said. He kneeled down by the bed and flipped the covers away to stroke Jamie's hands. They were tied in front of her, over her stomach. She didn't flinch from him, and the reason was scrawled over her body in bruises and blood. Spots of it decorated the dirty white hospital nightgown. She was a bright girl, and she'd learned.

Blair looked away. He felt like a traitor, like a coward, but he had to look away.

"Thanks," she whispered. To Brandon, probably, but maybe to Blair, too. He hoped so.

"Blair, why don't you go bring the groceries in?"

"No."

Brandon looked over his shoulder. He grinned, a friendly look; he thought it was funny. "Party can't start without you," he said. "Just go get the bags, okay?" He made a little shooing motion with one hand and looked away. He went back to whispering to Jamie, and Blair was off Brandon's screens, he could feel it.

It occurred to him that killing the man might not make any difference. That kind of insanity, it wasn't normal, it wasn't even human. Lash had looked at him like that, with that same friendly kind of sharing, like they were together on some kind of wild adventure. Kids wandering through an endless summer vacation -- companions. Killing might not even put a dent in madness like that, might just wash over Brandon without leaving any impression.

Blair went out to the truck. It was darker here than night was in the city. A faint glow on the horizon told him where Cascade was. The wind was in the trees, and the keys were still there, a joke, a test, he didn't know what. Did Brandon know Blair had his own keys all along? It didn't matter. He pulled them from the ignition, grabbed as many plastic handles as he could, and carried the bags back into the cabin. They made a satisfying thunk when he dropped them on the table, and everybody in the room jumped, even Jim. Even Jim, who couldn't actually see.

"You left the keys," Blair said, staring at Brandon, complex emotions flaring in him like heat lightning. He tossed them at Brandon's feet, a dissonant jingle that seemed to ring in the air for longer than it should. Fear, hate, disgust -- he didn't know what he felt. He didn't know what he was looking at.

Too many layers.

"Thanks, Blair," Brandon said. He seemed to mean it. He crossed the room and stood in front of Blair, put a meaty hand on his shoulder. "It's going to be okay. I promise you." Blair just looked at him. "I promise you, man," Brandon said, awkwardly. Putting it into Blair's language.

And Blair just looked at him until the huge hand fell away, and Brandon turned to the groceries.

"Jim," Blair said carefully. Softly, so little breath behind it, looking at his partner. He went to the chair Jim was tied to and knelt down beside it. A wild image of Brandon kneeling next to Jamie careened through his mind, and that fast he was off balance, overbalanced, he had to reach down and touch the floor with one hand for support. "Jim, I don't know what to do."

"I don't either, buddy," Jim said, just as soft. Blair had to read his lips to understand it, like he had in Jamie's hospital room. So long ago. Just that very morning. "What'd you get from him?"

"He's a headcase," Blair said. He ran a hand across what should've been Jim's field of vision. No response. "And I think he's a Republican."

"I think I just turned Libertarian. Is he armed?"

"Yeah. Two of them, each about as big around as my chest. We're fucked," Blair said. "And I say that optimistically."

"I can't see."

"I know." Blair closed his own eyes, sharing Jim's darkness for a second. "I can help with that."

"I think my shoulder's dislocated, too. I'd rather you helped with that."

"Damn it, Jim, I'm a guide, not a doctor."

"When we get out of this, I'm locking you out of the Sci-fi channel."

There wasn't time to argue. Blair reached up with the hand that wasn't steadying himself, reached toward Jim's head to push back hair that didn't really need it. He just wanted to make contact, he didn't have to, but Jim flinched away from him.

Blair's eyes went wide, then narrowed. He reached out again, and Jim pressed tighter against the back of the chair. "No!"

Blair pulled his hand away. Seconds passed before Jim relaxed, muscles losing their tension. "I need you to see, Jim," Blair said softly, but he didn't make another move. "I'm as blind as you, here."

"Not that way, Sandburg."

"Then what way? Damn it, Jim--"

"What're you doing?"

Jim's head snapped up, and Blair turned so fast he almost fell over. Brandon was there behind him, right behind him, head tilted to one side. There was a slight smile on his face, questioning; he wasn't mad, he wasn't even upset. He was just curious.

He knelt down next to Blair and looked up at Jim. "He can't see, you know. I think I hit him too hard. I really didn't mean for that to happen."

"Like you give a damn," Jim said.

"You know, you can keep thinking of me as your enemy till the end of the world, Ellison, but that won't make it true. I'm not here to hurt anybody. When we're done, you and your partner can walk away."

"And Jamie?" Blair said. "What about her, man? Is she going to walk away with us?"

Brandon blinked. His eyes went inward, and Blair held his breath, certain he'd pushed too hard. Asked the wrong question. He wasn't trained for this. Jesus, there was no training for this--

But the look went away, flashed over Brandon like lightning and vanished just that fast. His smile widened, teeth bright and crooked in his mouth. "Who?"

Blair didn't answer. There wasn't anything he could say.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


The road was like a washboard. It wasn't even a decent road, just a track through some narrow spaces between trees. The car jolted like it had palsy. Hell on the shocks.

Sunset passed unnoticed in the storm. It had been dark for over an hour, just wind and heat-lightning, but now the rain was coming down hard enough to impress Noah himself. Thunder cracked overhead and rolled on out toward the horizon. It would make for good cover, the dark and the noise, like the sky itself was on their side.

Simon watched trees flash by through the spattered window and felt violated. Brandon Winters had been in his station, had been inside his office. There hadn't been any bad-guy vibe on him, hadn't been any hunch or any suspicion. He'd been in the same room as the white board, for God's sake, there was just something wrong with that.

Rafe drove them on through the rain and the wind. Simon's teeth clenched painfully together. It was dark now, and in a cabin somewhere not far off, a cabin owned by Brandon Winters' uncle, his people were waiting for him. The headlights cut through the weather and showed more weather beyond; visibility was almost zero. Rafe was going too fast, but Simon didn't try to slow him down.

It hadn't taken more than a minute to find out who'd taught the CPR class all the Blade's victims had taken. The name was on the printout in Simon's hand, in small black Arial print. Brandon Winters, Jr. It listed his date of initial employment and the dates of his two subsequent promotions, and it gave his address, a block from the hospital. One team had already been there and come up empty. Someone had dug up a resume that showed him gainfully employed in Cascade for the past ten years. He'd graduated with Honors in 1989 from Rainier University. His degree was in counseling psychology, with a minor in sociology. He was skilled with Microsoft Office and could program in HTML. "Child-murderer" was not listed among his credentials.

"He was a very quiet neighbor," Simon said.

Rafe glanced over. He smiled in a way that made Simon flinch. "They a�ways are."

Another one of his people in danger, this one less than a foot away, and not a damn thing Simon could do about it. There were lines around the kid's eyes, and no color at all in his face. Black and white, all sharp angles. God, this case.

Simon rubbed at his eyes. "How're we doing?"

"Almost there, sir. Another mile, mile and a half."

"I'll check the team." He made the call on his cell phone. He ordered the ambulance to hang back -- first round to the cops. Simon and Rafe were in the lead car, and behind, two squad cars with some guys they'd pulled out of Vice. It was all they had time for, and it was going to be more than enough. One fucked-up psycho vs. six cops and twice as many guns. They'd circle the place and try to take Winters out from a distance, limit the crossfire to something Jim and Blair and Jamie could maybe survive.. The ambulance was insurance. With any luck, Winters would be the one who needed it.

The phone shrilled just as he hung up. He snapped his name out, listened, and started to smile. They were way overdue for some good news, and this was better than he'd expected.

"Joel. You're missing the party."

"Sorry, Captain. I got a little tied up. Rhonda brought me up to speed, then made me go to the hospital. I'm in the Emergency Room now."

"They're gonna make us rent space."

"Simon, Winters got me good. I never saw him coming. I'm getting too old for this. I shoulda seen him."

"Save it for confession, Taggart. Just stay put and keep your phone with you. I'll call you when it's all gone down. You got any words of wisdom for me?"

"Kill the sonofabitch."

Simon grinned. "I like those words," he said.

He hung up and found Rafe looking at him. "You heard," he said. "Small favors, huh?"

"I'm glad Joel's okay."

"We're all gonna be," Simon said. "Every last one of us."

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


The rain outside was letting up. A fine drizzle of it slid down the outside of the window panes. The night outside was black enough to be surreal; it felt like the cabin was cocooned in its own version of reality, one right angle away from sanity.

There was a small room just off the main one. Brandon went into it, humming softly to himself. He'd stopped noticing any of them but Jamie when the thunder stopped. He was wrapped up in her, and in himself. A world within a world within a world, each less sane than the one outside it.

The door closed behind Brandon with a soft click, and Blair was across the room before the sound faded.

"Hey, Jamie," he said. "You remember me?"

She turned her head toward him, away from the window beside her. The eye she could see with was red around the iris, and wet. "Mr. Sandburg," she said, and her voice was insupportably bad, hoarse and torn. "I'm sorry."

"Shhh. Nothing going on here's your fault, kiddo," he said. "We're going to get out of this, okay?"

"He'll be back. He just went to get his Bible. He reads to me from it," Jamie said. "He's going to hurt me some more, later."

She didn't even sound upset about it. Blair's breath caught in his throat, and he couldn't say anything, couldn't make his voice work.

"He won't hurt you," she said. "He says he needs you to watch."

"I'm his Christopher." Blair rolled his eyes and found a smile for her. "He's kind of a nutjob, huh?"

Incredibly, she smiled back. She didn't say anything. Slowly, he pulled the covers from her shoulders and folded them near her waist. "Gonna untie your hands now, Jamie," he said. "Our secret, okay?"

Her smile faded. Wide-eyed and tense, she nodded. Blair didn't say anything, but on the inside he started making some promises. He worked as fast as he could with clumsy fingers, then stuffed the nylon rope into his pocket. The skin around her wrists was dark with bruising and broken scabs.

Blair looked down at his own hands, whole and helpless. Wordlessly, he covered her back up. "I have to talk to Detective Ellison now," he said. Gently, telegraphing every move, he reached out and touched her cheek. No pressure; he didn't want to hurt her. It looked like she hurt like hell already. "We're going to fix this," he said. She nodded, not meeting his eyes. After a second, she turned back to the window.

Blair turned to Jim.

"Hey," Blair said. His voice was as even and calm as he could make it. No sudden reprieve here, no second chances. "Guess what my next move is, Tonto."

Jim didn't answer at first. His eyes tracked aimlessly, seeing nothing, and Blair could feel anger and helplessness churning in the air between them. It was Jim's way to find an alternative, that was what the guy did for a living, but it just wasn't gonna happen here. "Not on him," Jim said. "On me. Like in the kitchen."

"I think we lost our shot at that scenario. I'd get you your eyes back just in time for you to watch him cut Jamie's out. It's gotta be him."

"This," Jim said, "really sucks."

"Yeah. Stop the presses."

The knife on the table by the bedside reflected the firelight dimly; it was sharp and thick, brushed metal with a solid black grip. Blair hadn't known knives like that existed; it was something out of a coked-up Soldier of Fortune wet-dream, all curves and wicked points. Not a hunting knife, but the kind of thing you held in your teeth while creeping around on your belly in the jungle. Blair figured Jim had probably seen knives like this one before, maybe even used them, but even that momentary comparison turned his stomach sour. This was the blade Brandon was named for.

"There isn't any other way." Blair said it like Jim had kept protesting. A good argument had to run its course. He fumbled with the knots at Jim's hands. Tighter than Jamie's, more complex, and they didn't have much time. They had no time. "I can't get them undone."

"The knife."

"No time."

Jim nodded. "Keep trying."

Blair kept trying. "I can't take him on, and you can't see him. He's running the show, and I don't have time to fight you on this, Jim. I can't."

"It could kill you."

"It's me or her, Jim." Blair said it as gently as he could. "And if it's her, it's me too, anyway. This is my call, you have to know that."

Jim nodded. Blair nodded back, and there was an understanding between them that had always been there, a kind of a pact. Brandon would not be allowed to touch Jamie again, that was a given.

They'd bought that product already. The price could be negotiated later.

"It's no good," Blair said. "Too many knots. What the hell was he before he turned psycho? Houdini?"

"Keep trying."

"I'll be okay," Blair said.

"Don't bullshit me, Sandburg. I'm blind, not stupid."

Blair looked at Jim for a long time, then leaned down so close he could feel Jim's breath on his face. "It's been a good ride," he said. "Whatever happens, I'm okay."

Jim's mouth worked, but no words came out. This was uncharted territory for Blair, the whole heroic sacrifice thing. More than a little unnerving. He was out on a very thin limb, and anything Jim had to say was bound to be destabilizing.

Blair looked away. Back to the ropes. He was pretty sure he knew what Jim was thinking, anyway.

Brandon came back in. He brought a chill with him, and the smell of antiseptic. He didn't even glance in their direction; his work absorbed him entirely. Blair thought Jamie didn't hear them, either, but he couldn't be sure. Her eyes were closed, and if there were any justice in the world, she'd fainted. Jim heard him, followed the sound with a slow turning of his head.

He went to the door and locked it, throwing a thick iron bolt. And then he moved to the bed and stopped, looking down.

He swayed slightly where he stood. Blair took his hands off the ropes around Jim's wrists, slowly, and stood up. Slowly. No sudden moves.

Brandon pulled the coverlet off Jamie's body. "Somebody's been busy," he said. "I was going to untie her first anyway."

"Brandon." Blair's voice was unsteady, but inside he was rock solid. Course charted, and all that jazz; he was on the track now, and there wasn't any room left to waffle in. "I won't play. You understand? You hurt her, and there isn't going to be any Christ-bearing going on here. Your future has prison bars in it, not harps and angels. This thing you're doing, it's not gonna turn out the way you want it to."

Brandon turned. He was just a guy, just a really big ugly guy. Blair had a second to wonder how it could have happened this way, how anybody who looked like everybody else -- a few sizes larger, but still just like all the other faceless people on the street -- could hold so much wrongness inside his skin. That was the problem; the crazy in Brandon was all on the inside, where you couldn't see it if you didn't look him right in the eye.

Blair looked. He looked long and hard, and the light in there was twisted and sick. Brandon smiled at him from eyes like holes, and his voice, when he spoke, was thick with compassion.

"Blair," he said. "Don't try to think through it. Feel it. Did you really think I could give you an answer you'd understand?"

Mouth dry as paper, lungs frozen in his chest, Blair could only shake his head.

Brandon turned away. Blair reached down and put a hand on Jim's shoulder. The touch was like the completion of a circuit. Every detail of the room snapped into sharp relief, and a surge of confidence straightened his spine.

"Do what you have to," Jim said. "Do it good, okay?"

"I will." Blair's voice broke. He looked down into Jim's sightless eyes, sharp and blue and viciously compassionate. It looked like there were going to be regrets after all. So many things....

"Hero," Jim said. His mouth turned up, and Blair was shocked, stunned that he could smile back.

"Wuss," he said softly. He squeezed Jim's shoulder, for comfort and support, for luck, and then looked away from the still, strong face of his friend.

Time to focus on the monster.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Having a partner is different from having a lover or a friend or a brother. Jim had once been really clear about that. He'd never lived with his partners before, the military not withstanding, so things got mixed up. Hard to risk the life of the guy who made you coffee in the mornings and left his hair all over the shower stall. Too many nights just hanging out listening to each other make noise made for the wrong kind of feelings out on the streets. It was the kind of thing that made you hesitate, made you hang back a little longer than you ought to. The kind of thing that made you tell the guy to stay in the truck.

There wasn't any truck on this one. There was just the one room, and the four of them in it, and nothing Jim could do to stop what Blair had just started. Your friends and family stayed behind you where it was safe, but sometimes your partner had to go in first.

It was his partner's show now -- not his friend, not his brother. Just his partner, doing what had to be done.

Jim had never been more proud, or more scared.

Blair's hand on his shoulder was hot and tight, a grip that would've impressed a pit bull. There was some of that mentality in the man beside him, a combination of tunnel-vision and grit. Jim had a feeling that if this crazy stunt killed them both, the coroner would have to pry Blair's fingers off him with a crowbar.

Every sound in the room was magnified to the point of pain, but Jim honestly didn't give a shit. Let it hurt. He didn't dare dial anything down when his eyes couldn't be on the prize. He wanted to see more than he thought he'd ever wanted anything, except maybe to be untied and well-armed for the climax of this show. He wanted to see what Blair looked like, to see if it was causing him any pain; he wanted to see if Jamie was scared, if she was being brave. He had a feeling she was taking it the hard way, being strong for everybody. Her brother was like that; Jim thought she'd be like that, too.

Partners. He'd told Blair they could be equals with the empathy thing on one side of the scale and the sentinel thing on the other, scales of justice with a new-age, old-world twist. He'd forgotten that the lady in the middle of that symbol was blind. The irony of it wasn't escaping him now.

Hell of a thing.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


There was so much power in this.

Blair pulled it in and got drunk on it, only distantly aware of the source. Exhilaration flared through his brain and left him shaking. His knees were like water, but there was fire in his mind, fire shaped like a hand.

He reached. He reached in. The wrongness of it doubled him over, and it felt like his stomach was being ripped out through his spinal chord, but he reached anyway, and Brandon was there. Winters was there, bastard didn't get the luxury of a first name, and that's what he was inside anyway, he was nothing but winter. Ice. Ice all around, so cold it hurt, burned. So cold.

He reached. Energy sang through him again, and this time he found the contact point. Beside him, burning like a new star, a place he'd been before. Jim.

In the brightness of his own mind, Blair smiled, connected -- and turned away.

He could feel everything, see it all, laid out like a map of the lunatic's life. It was superimposed over the furniture and the girl and the bed and the knife and the man like an overhead transparency. This was the hidden mechanism; it turned a pointless talent for self-induced brain death into the best tool since the automatic bagel slicer. This connection was the key, and the energy that ran through it -- the strength of two, funneled and shaped by one.

Blair drew on Jim, the way he was meant to. The way Jim had always drawn on him.

He could see the dark places, and if he wanted, he could change them. Make them better. If he wanted, he could untangle the snarls and smooth them out, he could fix, but he had to be honest with himself in here, and if he were honest, that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted Winters to hurt. He paused not a second over it, over the un-Blairness of it, and he was glad there wasn't really time to do the thing he didn't want to do.

What there was time for was a little self-righteous ass-kicking. This was going to work, and Blair was going to survive it.

He reached again. He opened the fist in his mind and closed it around everything he saw, the dark and the light, everything, closed it, closed it, and there was a searing pain in his head, and Brandon turned to him, inside and out, there was a wash of red (blood) over the whites of Brandon's eyes and he dropped the knife and turned.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


There came an instant when the heat from Blair's hand became painful. It seared through his shirt and into his skin. It felt like that hand was sinking into his body, becoming part of him, and then the pain dissolved.

It turned into something that felt...almost good.

The tension went out of Jim. Drained away like run-off down a storm drain, gone and forgotten. Sound intensified -- the drizzle outside was like Niagara, the wind a hurricane. There were other sounds, too -- metal sliding against metal, a buzz of static, a quiet click as a bullet found its way into a chamber -- oh, man, it was the cavalry, and about damned time, maybe he could stop it, maybe he could stop Blair and the whole fucking nightmare could be over. He could smell gun oil and dirt and dead leaves, he could smell Simon's cigar, Rafe's cologne, hell, he could smell Rafe's anger, sharp and bitter, and there was a taste in the air like iron that he thought was metal at first, but that turned out to be organic, it was blood, and it was coming from where Winters stood next to Jamie's bed side, and Jim could see.

Light and color roared into his brain and set his eyes on fire. He could _see_. Jamie was being brave like he thought, Winters had dropped the knife and turned on Blair, and Jim wrenched at the ropes that bound him to the chair, cutting his wrists, and the pain was another fire, the chair moved, but the ropes held, and he looked up at Blair, his partner who was also his friend, but right now, more than anything else in the heart of this fiasco his _partner_, and the blast of the gun nearly deafened him.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


A flash of fire through the window, shattering, and Blair saw blood sprout from one of Winters eyes, the left eye, there was just a hole there now. He blinked, and the pain hit like a hammer. Blinked again -- and oh, shit, no, the thing he'd closed his fist around on the inside exploded like a wicked-quiet H-bomb, exploded into

\- light -

pain and the fist exploded with it, light everywhere, noise everywhere, and was this what a zone was like? Was this what being Jim was like? Spikes of color everywhere, agony, and a

\- dark -

haze over everything, and then there was a voice in that darkness, he grabbed onto it and found out it was his own voice, and it was saying, "Ow" and then "Oh, God," and then, "what--?"

And then he didn't hear it anymore. Didn't see anymore. It was quiet.

Everything was quiet.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Blair was falling. Jim watched from someplace distant. Red spread across the blue of Blair's eyes. Red. Red. And Blair was gone. The place in his mind where Blair lived was gone. Memory flooded in, and Jim made a sound he'd never heard himself make before, a grunt that was also a sob and he couldn't feel Blair in there anymore, it was just like the backyard, he could even smell grass like he'd smelled it there, the cavalry was too late.

Blair was falling, dying before his eyes. Blair fell.

Jim closed his eyes. He didn't want to see so much, anymore.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Someone screamed her name.

Screaming actually seemed like a smart idea, and she thought she might do some of it herself if she could breathe. She had to be careful, though, because there was a crazy guy who wanted to give her over to God before she was ready, and when she was quiet he didn't really hurt her so bad.

The yelling got louder, and no one touched her. After a second, she opened her eyes and turned her face away from the window.

The new man was doing the yelling. He was tied to a chair, and his eyes were so wide open there was white all around the blue. He looked scared.

She met his eyes, and he took a deep breath. "Jamie?"

"Yes, sir," she said.

"Are you okay?"

"I think so. My head hurts. My eye hurts." Her eye hurt bad, and it got worse the moment she remembered.

"I know, sweetheart," he said. "I know you're hurt, and I'm sorry, but I need you, okay? I need you to help me because Blair fell, and he's hurt, too."

"He'll come back."

For a second the new man frowned. Then his eyes got wide again. He smiled at her. "No," he said. "He's dead, Jamie. Look over the side of the bed."

She didn't believe him, but she looked. She felt her own eyes get wide. The crazy man was on the floor and there was a big red hole where one of his eyes used to be. She was old enough and smart enough to know dead when she saw it, and the new man was right. The crazy man was dead.

She sat up and swung her legs over, careful not to let her feet touch his body. Every part of her complained, all the bruises and cuts and abused muscles. Her knees shook when she tried to stand up the first time, but she looked up at the new man, at Detective Ellison, and he was pale and scared. He nodded at her, and she tried again, and this time she could stand up.

The door shook. She looked at it, and pressed up against the bed. Someone out there. More yelling. Someone bad.

"It's good guys, Jamie," Detective Ellison said. "Can you unlock the door for me? Blair needs them, sweetheart, you have to let them in."

She walked around the body. She couldn't really think of it as _him_. A part of her was sure he would come back at any time, or the body would suddenly move and be _him_ again like it sometimes did in the movies. She wished she had a gun or something so she could shoot him again, just like Neve Campbell in Scream, just to be sure. She couldn't see one, though, so she just walked really carefully and went around behind the detective's chair, and that was where she found the other man. Blair.

He was pretty bad, all right. "I don't think--"

"He's okay," Detective Ellison said. "Just unlock the door."

"I think his heart has stopped," she said. She knelt down by Blair and put her hand on his shoulder. "Can you hear me?"

He couldn't. He didn't move, anyway. He wasn't breathing. She checked his airway, which was clear, and moved her hand to his forehead and tipped his chin carefully with the other. This was easy. With the hand on his forehead she pinched his nose and breathed, twice, into his mouth. She checked again for breath.

Nothing.

Detective Ellison was shouting at the door. She ignored him and checked Blair's pulse. There wasn't one. She measured two fingers from the end of his sternum, positioned her hands, locked her elbows, and pressed down.

A crackling sound, popping. It went up her arms, and she recoiled from it. She thought she might've broken his ribs. It took a second to remember that the sound was normal, it was okay, the sound just happened sometimes and it was fine. She took a deep breath, for herself this time, and went on.

"One one-thousand." Again. "Two one-thousand."

On three, the door opened with a crash. Jamie heard it, but she didn't stop. It didn't seem to matter, nothing mattered but the rhythm of what she was doing. This was good, this was something she could choose to do, and she was going to do it.

A thud, and a face before hers, hands on her hands. Dark eyes on hers. "James, honey," the man said, and in her mind a name floated up and out. Brian.

"Only my brother calls me that." Four one-thousand. Five one-thousand.

He waited out the count, then put his hands over hers. "We're gonna switch places now, okay?" he said. "You breathe."

"Okay, Brian," she said. Two-man. She knew how to do that, too.

There was another man, and she recognized him too, he was okay. He came in through the open door and stared at her out of black, angry eyes. There was a long gun in his hand. She nodded at him and knelt by Blair's head, waiting for Brian's word.

His hand was on Blair's throat, just over the carotid artery. His face was still and white; his eyes were on his work. When he looked up and met her eyes, his smile stretched all the way across his face.

"Got a pulse," Brian said. "I think he's breathing."

"Don't think, Rafe," Detective Ellison said sharply.

Brian nodded. "He's breathing, Jim. He's okay."

"Don't jinx it," the detective said. "Somebody untie me."

"Did it work?" she asked. Brian had turned Blair on his side. "Did it really work?" He was breathing, she could hear it, but she couldn't believe it. Couldn't.

"It worked," Brian said. "It worked great."

"He taught me that." She looked over at the dead crazy man. He was fuzzy around the edges, even out of the eye that didn't hurt. She wiped at it; her hand came away wet. "Brandon taught me," she whispered.

"It's okay, James," Brian said, and he reached out to her and put a hand on her face, her cheek, and his fingers got wet too because she was crying.

"Only my brother calls me that," she said.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


"You ready to get sprung?"

Blair sat on the edge of his bed, dressed in about fifteen layers and vibrating like a guitar string. He looked good. A little pale, a little delicate around the eyes maybe. Looked like he had one hell of a headache. The room was filled nearly overflowing with balloons and cut flowers, and Blair's nose was running.

Jim felt a sneeze coming on himself.

"I was ready before I got here," Blair said. "They won't let me stand up, though. Sarah's bringing a wheel chair."

"I love those things," Jim said. "It's the best part of getting hospitalized."

"Think I'll let you push me out this time. I don't think I want to meet any more friendly orderlies for a while."

"Amen," Jim said. And said it again to himself, in one of the more private places in his head. There was a new kind of quiet in Jim's world now. Not just at home, but inside. A burned-out connection. Brandon Winters had made that quiet. He was two days dead, and Jim still wanted to kill him.

The hospital wouldn't hear of letting Blair out a second too soon this time. A Dr. McCoy had come to the waiting room to speak to Jim specifically on the subject just a few hours after they brought Blair in. It wasn't a conversation Jim would be forgetting during this lifetime.

He hadn't been allowed to visit. Nobody had. Simon and Rafe and Taggart had all done time in the waiting room, but the staff was kind, compassionate, and firm. No visitors for Blair Sandburg until the neurologist gave the word, and the neurologist was apparently more tight-assed than Jim ever dreamed of being. It was disconcerting to have competition in that area, and not just a little bit depressing. When Blair had regained consciousness, he'd complied with his doctors wishes. So, Jim had waited.

And waited. He'd tried to entertain himself with the thought of Blair being the one getting "tested," but his heart wasn't in it. He'd waited patiently, and then not so patiently, for some trace of Blair's existence to impress itself upon the part of him that was listening for it. That part of him ached in a strange, non-tactile way. Missing Blair on a sentinel level, he supposed.

Other levels, too. It was no fun watching Mystery Science Theatre alone.

"You think we're taking all this pollen home with us, you better think again," Jim said. "I'm not gonna wander around leaking at the face for a week just so you can feel loved."

Blair rolled his eyes. "I'm sure you'll make me feel plenty loved all on your own."

"I'm charming that way," Jim agreed.

Silence, then, inside and out. Jim went to the window and plucked a card out of a particularly obnoxious bouquet. It was from a Dr. Flanigan at Rainier, who wished Blair a speedy recovery and granted him an extension of three extra days on a paper that had come due yesterday.

"Man," Jim said. He shook his head. "The ivory tower is vicious."

"Yeah, and you wonder why I don't mind Simon."

"Simon gave you two weeks. He's obviously missed a few classes in 'Hardass.'"

"Yeah, but I'm learning."

Jim turned. Simon was framed in the doorway, leaning up against the jamb. His eyes and his lips were slanted downward, sour and put-upon. "Hey, Simon," Jim said. "You see a nurse with a wheelchair out there?"

"Only about ten of 'em."

"Pick one," Blair said. "I don't care which. Just get me out of here, okay? This place gives me the creeps."

Arms crossed over his chest, shivering in spite of the cotton T-shirt and the flannel and the leather jacket covering it all, Blair looked like nothing more than a strung-out junkie. There was a wild look in his eyes like he was ready to bolt any second. Jim wanted to do something for him -- round up a nurse, take his temperature, give him a hug -- something. But there was this space between them now and nothing to fill it, an urge to reach across the gap, but nothing to reach with. The territory was uneven and uncharted, and it was easier -- safer -- to just shove his hands deep into his pockets and hope for the best. Things had a way of turning out okay for Blair, anyway.

The silence got in the middle of them again. Simon, sensitive to it in a way Jim wouldn't have expected, made half an offer to go find a nurse and disappeared. It left Jim alone with Blair, which was not necessarily a bad thing, but Blair wasn't talking.

Jim missed Blair talking. He missed it a lot.

"So," he said. "About the guide thing."

"Jim, no. Can't we at least get home first? I'm tired. I have a headache. I really badly want a cheeseburger. I'm not ready to talk about it now, okay?"

"Okay," Jim said. He looked out the window; it was a pretty nice day, for winter in Cascade. The sun was shining, which he felt the city was owed after the storms of the last few weeks. "The thing is, I think we have to talk about it now."

Blair fell back onto the bed, his legs hanging off the side. He looked up at the ceiling and asked it, "Why me?"

The ceiling didn't answer whiners, Jim figured. Or maybe it knew from rhetorical.

"I just wanted to say...." Jim stopped. He wasn't really sure what he wanted to say. Something about how weird things felt, and how he hoped it would get more normal, and how he was really, really glad his partner was okay.

"What?"

"I guess I just wanted to say thanks."

"For what? My stunning debut as an empathic guide was cut pathetically short by a bullet to Brandon Winters' brain, if you recall. For those of us not keeping score, you and I just got our nuts hauled out of the fire by Brian Rafe and his partner's baby sister. They're the ones you should be thanking."

"I already did. Now I'm thanking you."

"And I repeat," Blair said. He sat up and turned to face Jim, his eyes seriously curious. "For what?"

"For being a partner." Jim met Blair's look cautiously, then with more certainty when no laughter was forthcoming. "You did good."

"Yeah," Blair said. "Well. The bad news is, I think I got downgraded back to sidekick."

"The...thing, the--"

"Gone the way of the Dodo, man." Blair shrugged. There was a kind of lost look on his face, just for a second, but then in the next second he was grinning -- a real grin, the kind that made Jim feel like they owned the world. "Couldn't convince a cop to have a donut these days," he said. "I think I'm actually kind of relieved."

"You could convince me," Jim said. "Try."

"Pass. I'll stick to my native charm from now on, if you don't mind."

"Which is scary enough all on its own."

Blair smiled again and put a hand over his heart. The smile was getting better every time. "You noticed."

"'Human crime lab, organic surveillance....'"

"Yadda, yadda, yadda." Blair sighed and looked at the door. "I'm never getting out of here," he said.

"I could carry you."

"And I could dislocate your other shoulder."

So much for that idea. Jim grinned, feeling a little better now that his partner was threatening him again. Small steps on the road to recovery, but steps all the same. "What do you think it's for?" he said.

"What? The -- thing?"

"Yeah. I mean, it has to be for something, right, Darwin? You wouldn't have it if it weren't a survival trait, right?"

"I don't have it now," Blair pointed out. "And it very nearly interfered permanently with my continued survival." He shook his head, eyes focused someplace Jim couldn't see. "Sometimes we don't get to know, man."

"But it was there. So what was it for? At the end there...I felt...."

Incredible. He'd felt incredible. Stronger than ever. Senses on fire, but still he could control every aspect of it, direct them however he wanted. He'd never felt farther from a zone than in those seconds with Blair's hand burning a hole into his shoulder. Afterwards he'd expected to find a scar, but there was nothing. Just the memory of...something new. The perfect sentinel high.

Blair's eyes were intent on him, measuring. Jim couldn't find the right words, so he just...left himself open. And hoped. Maybe something...it was okay for a guy to hope, right? Just a little?

And for a second, there was something. He was sure of it. Blair's eyes widened, and his nostrils flared, and there was fear on his face, and hunger, and they were together in the space between them just for a second. The slightest, barest, easiest second ever. It was over almost before it started, but that empty spot in his mind didn't feel so strange, after.

Jim grinned, and knew he looked goofy, and didn't care. Blair pressed his lips together and didn't say anything, but Jim could hear his breath coming harder, and his heart beating faster, and scared as his best friend was, Jim knew he was high on it, too. They both were.

Blair looked away. His eyes stopped on a small aloe plant on the table by the bed. "I'm taking this one with me," he said. "It's from Jamie."

Jim nodded. She'd sent him one, too. A matched set. "She gets out next week, H says."

"Yeah. I want to go see her, when I'm...a little steadier."

"She's one tough little girl."

"Not really a little girl now," Blair said. "Hell of a way to grow up, huh? Got to hand it to her, though. She did great, Jim. She was totally stand-up."

"Saved your sorry ass," Jim said.

"Her and Rafe. Simon said it was the best shot he'd ever seen, and Rafe made it cool as ice. Dislocated his shoulder trying to get into the cabin. While you looked on from the cheap seats, I might add."

Jim grinned and popped Blair one on the shoulder. "You put on a good show," he said. "Next time I'll make popcorn."

"Next time I'll bring an Uzi," Blair said, "and you can be the one who gets his brain blown up."

It sounded good to Jim. Both counts. He figure he could stand to live quite a few lifetimes without seeing Blair die on him again.

"We never did find out the deal with the names. What was the deal with the names, you think?"

"Not a clue." Jim shrugged. "Sometimes we don't get to know."

"That sucks, Jim."

Jim nodded. The kid didn't lie.

  
   


* * *

  
   


  


Blair leaned over the railing of the balcony, a brown bottle dangling loosely from his hands. IBC. He was a little too woozy to risk a beer yet, but just holding the sweating bottle was a comfort. Jim was under no such restriction; the bottle in his hands was Heineken.

"How's the arm?"

Jim transferred his beer to his right hand and flexed his left biceps. "Good as new."

"And the shoulder?"

"Let's not talk about the shoulder."

Blair nodded. The muscles would heal whether they talked about them or not. Jim was getting better at taking care of himself, which had to be a good thing, but it tended to cut down on conversation. Jim wasn't about to damage himself any further, not when getting healthy was the only way to get back on duty. He'd throw himself into that like he threw himself into everything, whole-hearted.

The balcony grew quiet as the sun sank. Traffic was distant and quiet on a Sunday, and the park on Seventh had turned off its lights just after dinner. It probably wasn't quiet for Jim, but it was good enough for Blair: peaceful, kind of still, kind of empty. It kept him from probing at the blank, painful space in his mind; kept him from reaching out to anybody. Here, in the gathering dark, there was only Jim -- and if he couldn't feel the warmth of Jim's mind, he could certainly be glad of the warmth of the arm next to his on the railing, and of the even breathing just barely audible beside him.

"How's the head?" Jim said.

His eyes were closed, his face bland and slack. Dying sunlight played across the planes of it. Blair watched him, wondering what was going on in there, wondering if he'd ever know.

"Hurts," he answered shortly, looking away. Back out at the sky and the bay. The ocean was an abstract of navy and gold; somebody should paint it.

"It may not be gone for good," Jim said. "You know that."

"Yeah."

"Maybe you should be...I don't know. Trying it. Testing it. That's what you told me to do, right? Remake the connection by an act of will."

Blair laughed, looking up high, stretching his neck. Not really seeing anything. "You needed your sight back, Jim. You wanted it. I'm not sure I want this thing."

"And if it's genetic? If it's something you can't just...give back?"

"Still doesn't mean I need or want it."

Jim made a soft, irritated sound. It conveyed a wealth of information involving the wisdom of denying one's destiny. "Shoe's on the other foot, huh?" he said.

Looking over at his partner, Blair grinned. "Save it, Ellison," he said. "I've got that one memorized."

"I'm just saying."

"Yeah, I know." Blair took a long drink from his bottle, closed his own eyes. "Simon know about it yet?"

"I told him."

"Good." He didn't want to have to explain it to Simon. Didn't really want to think about it at all. "I called the pizza place."

"You're a good man, Sandburg."

"Yeah? Well, you're buying."

"No, I really mean that. You did good."

"Come on, man--"

"Hear me out." Jim turned, and for a second Blair didn't need any special talent to see what was going on behind his eyes. "You did good work. Solid detective work; solid guide work. As partners go -- you're an ace, Sandburg. I just wanted you to know."

Blair took a deep breath and found he had nothing to say with it; he held it, blinking. Off-balance.

"It took guts," Jim said. "Standing up like that. You knew how it had to go, and you did what you had to do."

"Yeah. Well, I--"

Jim wasn't done; he held up a hand, cutting Blair off. "Just shut up a minute, okay?"

Blair nodded rapidly. "Okay."

"That thing you have. Had. Whatever. You're right about one thing. You don't need it. You sure as hell don't need it for us to be...the same. Equal partners. I owe you an apology about that. So, I'm sorry. And I think I'm going to hug you now. Don't slug me, okay?"

"Aw, Jim."

"Take it like an adult, Junior."

It was good. Weird. The thing between them that wasn't there anymore wasn't so bad with his face mashed into Jim's shoulder. It wasn't bad at all, like that. Blair started to feel like maybe things could be okay again. Jim was kind of awkward at it, but glommed onto him all the same, probably figuring it was something Blair needed. Which maybe Blair did, after all. He wasn't letting go, anyway. He could stand getting a hug sometimes if it were for a good cause.

He could maybe even get used to it. Always supposing Jim let him take a breath someday. He pushed back. Yeah, breathing would definitely be an issue.

"Okay." Blair sounded wrong in his own ears, voice too deep, too close to a whisper. "Okay." That was much better. "Thanks. That was -- good." He leaned against the railing again, heat climbing in his face. Blair wasn't so great with displays of affection, but figured he could humor Jim without damaging his tough-guy image.

Such as it was.

"When we worked together." Blair closed his eyes against the fading light. "When I went through you. That was safe."

"Yeah, I know."

"That was good. That worked."

Jim laid a hand on Blair's shoulder. "Good to know. You know. For future reference."

"Maybe it's not gone for good." Blair opened his eyes just in time to watch the sun sink below the horizon. Jim grinned, and Blair grinned back at him. They both stayed where they were -- looking out in the same direction, watching night fall on the city. Waiting for the doorbell.

It was a good quiet.


End file.
